20th Century
The Great Depression and the introduction of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal brought a decline in membership. During the depression, people could not afford Odd Fellows membership fees, and when the New Deal's social reforms started to take effect, the need for the social work of the Odd Fellows declined.
Some branches of the order (i.e., some countries) have allowed women to join the Odd Fellows itself, leading to the Rebekahs' decline in importance. Also, the higher branches and their degrees are, in some countries, becoming regarded as less important or too time-consuming, and (in those countries) are gradually being abandoned.
Read more about this topic: Independent Order Of Odd Fellows
Famous quotes containing the word century:
“And haughtier-headed Burke that proved the State a tree,
That this unconquerable labyrinth of the birds, century after century,
Cast but dead leaves to mathematical equality....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)