For sale is an original 1918 ODD FELLOWS LODGE DUES PAYMENT RECIEPT. This handwritten and signed dues receipt in the sum on $7.00 was payment for annual membership in the Oklahoma Lodge No. 8 which was paid on December 18, 1918. This receipt entitled the member entrance to any odd fellows lodge in North America. A rare and interesting ephemera fraternal lodge collectible.
The exact date of the first founding of Odd Fellowship is lost in the fogs of antiquity. Some historians trace its roots back to the Medieval Trade Guilds of the 12th and 13th Centuries. Others estimated that it existed before 1650. What is clear is that there were a number of Odd Fellow groups in England in the 1700s. The Lodges were originally formed by workingmen for social purposes, and for giving the brethren aid and assisting them to obtain employment when out of work. When a brother could not obtain work he was given a Card and funds enough to carry him to the next Lodge, and if unsuccessful there, that Lodge facilitated his farther progress in the same way. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows, was one of the largest and oldest fraternal orders in the United States.
