"Honor to the Fraternity"

Usually made from leather, silk or other textiles, Masonic aprons are tied around the waist at meetings to indicate a member’s stage of initiation, membership or lodge office. In addition to their function of symbolically communicating this information, aprons held personal meaning for their wearers. In the late 1810s one Masonic advisor wrote about the connection Masons had to their aprons, noting they should be worn with “pleasure…and honour to the fraternity.”

Expertly Made

Reflecting this pleasure and pride in Freemasonry, in the early 1800s many Masonic aprons were often bespoke works of art. Expert craftsmen, such as printers or leather dressers constructed and ornamented aprons at a client’s request. Makers crafted these aprons from a myriad of materials including leather, linen, silk and cotton. They decorated aprons with paint, ink, silk thread, trim, ribbon, beads and sequins. Skilled female family members of Masons, sewed, painted and embroidered aprons at home for fathers, brothers and other relatives. Apron makers, be they professional or amateur, drew on a variety of sources for models of apron design and decoration—other aprons, book illustrations, decorative arts, engraved certificates and their own imaginations.