Modern Woodmen of America history

A ladies' auxiliary, the Royal Neighbors of America, had been formed in 1888.

By 1889, there were 42,694 members of the MWA organization.

On June 6, 1890, Joseph Cullen Root founded WoodmenLife in a small hotel room in downtown Omaha.

The first Camp charter was issued to Alpha Camp #1, Omaha , Nebraska , Jan 10 1891.

First located in Fulton, the head office moved to Rock Island in 1897.

By 1900, over 250 fraternal groups existed in the United States, numbering six million members.

In Jacksonville, Florida, member J.M. Taylor organized the first Boys of Woodcraft unit in 1903.

MWA's facility, which opened on January 1, 1909, was not the first, but it was one of the largest.

The organization’s rituals and symbols mixed “Roman dignity and forest freedom.” By 1910, the Modern Woodmen numbered one million members.

Initially, Royal Neighbors was a ladies' auxiliary to the Modern Woodmen of America, but dissolved its affiliation with that group in 1929.

Talbot remained in office for more than three decades and was succeeded in November 1938 by MWA's treasurer, Oscar E. Aleshire of Chicago.

From shortly after MWA's founding to about 1950, members wore a variety of different types of jewelry.

It provides life insurance and disability insurance for its members. It now has a modern office building, on the Mississippi River, in Rock Island, Illinois, which it has occupied since 1967.

The Catastrophic Illness Benefit was created in 1973, which gave financial assistance to members with leukemia, a brain tumor, lung cancer or tuberculosis.

Barbara Franco, Fraternally Yours: A Decade of Collecting, Lexington, MA: Scottish Rite Masonic Museum of Our National Heritage, 1986.

In 1993 A.M. Best Company rated 42 fraternals and found Modern Woodmen to be one of the top six.

Total revenue reached $609 million in 1995, when assets were more than $3 billion.

Information donated by: Dale Foresythe ,2000

New Ventures, New HQ After 2001

2002: A financial services subsidiary is formed.

MWABank went online in the spring of 2003.

In 2006, the National Heritage Museum received a set of five fraternal banners that had originally belonged to the donor's grandmother.

In 2011, The Scottish Rite Museum and Library acquired several MWA postcards by donation.

Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library purchase through the generosity of Louis L. Williams, 2012.016.1.

Starting February 5, 2014, one of our hallway cases will feature a selection of Masonic and fraternal ritual objects from the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library collection.

WoodmenLife has been awarded a rating of A+ (Superior), the second highest ranking out of 15, for its financial strength and operating performance in 2020 by A.M. Best, an independent rating company that is nationally recognized for its objective reporting and rating of insurers.