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In the fall of 2023, we toured The George Washington Masonic National Memorial just outside of Washington, DC, in Virginia, and it was over the top. Would we be bored or disappointed visiting another Masonic temple?
The answer is a solid hard “nope!” The The Masonic Temple and Museum of Pennsylvania was over the top in completely different and fascinating ways!
The Masonic Temple and Museum of Pennsylvania is located directly across from Philadelphia’s City Hall and serves as the headquarters of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.
Freemasonry has existed in Philadelphia since the early 1700s, though lodges were located at different locations. Today there are more than 90,000 Freemasons in Pennsylvania.
The exterior of the building, in the medieval Norman style, was completed in 1873.
The interior took another 15 years to complete, and features seven “meeting halls” that each exemplify a different architectural style (the cover photo features the Corinthian Hall), plus a Grand Ballroom.
Inside, there is a museum of Freemasonry artifacts, which includes one of George Washington’s Freemason aprons and Benjamin Franklin’s Freemason sash. It is also home to a library and research center dedicated to the study of Freemasonry.
The details in this building were absolutely incredible. Even as you walked the halls, the coat hooks were worthy of attention.
On our tour, we were taken through six of the seven “meeting halls,” and each one on its own was worthy of a destination trip.
The walls, ceilings, rugs, lighting, and furniture all showed an unbelievable level attention and detail. I took so many pictures and had to restrain myself from including so many more in this post!
Our tour guide was a long-time Freemason who was very knowledge and full of little asides that I found most enjoyable.
I did clarify with him that there are no female Freemasons in the United States (as it was unclear after our visit to the Washington Masonic memorial).
I did find after-the-fact that there are similar organizations women can join, such as the Ladies’ Oriental Shrine of North America.
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