Independent Order of Immaculates

The Independent Order of Immaculates (or IOI) started in Nashville in 1872 as a successor to the Young Men’s Immaculate Association which had organized in 1868. The Immaculates allowed both men and women to join their lodges. Like other benevolent groups, the Immaculates offered sickness, accident and disability benefits to its members. Unlike other groups that began in Tennessee, the Independent Order of Immaculates grew to become a national organization. By 1907, there were lodges of the Independent Order of Immaculates in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, and Ohio.

(Clipping from the Globe-Republican (Dodge City, Kansas), August 26, 1891. Taken from the Library of Congress Historic American Newspaper Collection, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84029853/1891-08-26/ed-1/seq-2/)

While there were numerous branches of the Immaculates throughout the state of Tennessee, I have not yet found an extant building associated with the group. Lodges were established in Memphis in 1872, and by 1908, that city had three lodges of Immaculates with a total membership of five hundred. G.P. Hamilton stated in 1908 that the group in Memphis “numbers among its members some of the best and most progressive people in Memphis. It has done much good in the past and its prospects for the future were never brighter than now." (G.P. Hamilton, The Bright Side of Memphis (1908), 207).

While it is unknown when the Independent Order of Immaculates ceased to exist, it appears that they survived World War I. The 1924 Nashville City Directory lists the office for the group as being located at 1100 1st Avenue South and that there were ten lodges in Nashville at that time (1924 Nashville City Directory, 30).

(Clipping from the Nashville Globe, November 8, 1907. Found in the Newspapers Microfilm Collection, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee).

I hope in the course of this research to find out more about the Immaculates and hopefully to locate lodges associated with the order.