There was once a great many Secret Societies here in Oakland, though not sure how "secret" they were as all of them were listed in the city directory. Some were fraternal benefit organizations, and acted as a form of insurance. At any rate, here below is a list of all the Secret Societies in 1887. Notice that many are the names of city leaders who seem to be attending different organizations on different nights of the week.
for city council members that are allied with secret societies that i can't translate, i'm going to start tagging them "secret society." then if someone can go back and translate which they were, they can remove tag and replace with the appropriate society. sound good? -gk
Pages tagged “Secret Society”
Pages tagged “Masons”
Pages tagged “Odd Fellows”
Pages tagged “Scottish Rite Masons”
Pages tagged “Grand Army of the Republic”
Pages tagged “American Legion of Honor”
Pages tagged “Knights of Honor”
Pages tagged “Native Sons of the Golden West”
Pages tagged “Loyal Order of the Moose”
Pages tagged “Starr King Fraternity”