In the first decades of the 1800s, lodges and Grand Lodges often recommended but did not typically regulate apron size, shape and ornamentation. Different forms of Freemasonry that were popular during the time, such as the Royal Arch or Scottish Rite degrees, called for different colors and symbols on the aprons worn by their members. Masons in various areas of the country developed local or regional tastes for certain shapes or apron styles. Together, these factors resulted in a splendid diversity of aprons in the early 1800s.
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.”
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.
Boston Freemason Edward Horsman created and copyrighted the apron design made with this copper plate in the early 1800s. Judging by the number of surviving examples of the apron, it was a popular and long-lived design. An endorsement from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts that called out the design “as a judicious selection of the emblems of the Order, arranged with taste and propriety,” may have contributed to the design’s success.