The Architects of America: How the Freemasons Designed the Republic

The Freemasons were in on the ground floor during the construction of the American Republic. This book is a study of the role played by Freemasons in designing the United States, and an analysis of possible symbolic meanings they may have built into the very shape of the nation. It is certainly well known that a theoretical basis for what was to become America existed from the time of Richard Hakluyt and Sir Francis Bacon; whilst the (potential) symbolism of Washington DC's street plan has become the stuff of popular legend. The author's thesis falls somewhere in between: that from 1733 onwards, right up to the statehood of Hawaii in 1959, the alignment, size, shape, and even elevation of the 50 states has been carefully constructed to a plan, a design that identifies America as an architectural phenomenon as well as a political and social unit. The narrative concentrates on the development of Masonic ritual during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—especially their description of the ‘ideal building’ or Temple—and the emergence of a simple but highly symbolic mathematical formula that recurs regularly throughout the history of the Republic.