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420 – Contributed Poster Presentations: Social Statistics Section

Statistics in Support of Masonic Historical Studies

at Universidad Inter Americana de Puerto Rico

The present paper addresses two important historical questions regarding Freemasonry in Puerto Rico, with the help of two statistical procedures (in a similar way as in our ASA/JSM 2011 Social Stats paper, which you can find in: http://ecs.syr.edu/faculty/romeu/AsaJsmMasonTech2011.pdf). The first question deals with how, if in any way, has Freemasonry changed in the last 100 years. We have approached this through the ages that candidates apply for the organization. We have taken all First Degree (just initiated) members of Logia Adelphia (a Puerto Rican lodge) in the year 1888 (lodges can be seen as "conglomerates" in a sampling by conglomerates procedure). We have compared these ages with those of the applicants to the Grand Lodge of Puerto Rico during the first semester of 2012 using a two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The test does not reject the equality of the two distributions hypothesis. This provides some support to the assertion that, in Puerto Rico, the pattern of the ages of those joining Freemasonry has remained stable. The second question deals with what has been the contribution of Freemasonry to the struggle of Puerto Ricans for autonomy, under Spain, at the end of the XIX Century. We have compared the composition of the Autonomic Government that Spain organized in 1898 (four months before the start of the Spanish-American War) regarding their Masonic or non-Masonic credentials, using a Two Factor Contingency Table and the respective size of the general populations "at risk" (of becoming members of such Autonomic Government). The test shows a very strong association between being a Freemason and a Member of the Autonomic Government. This supports the assertion that one of the most important contributions of Freemasons to Puerto Rican struggle for Autonomy was the formation of Leaders. This study also shows how statistics can contribute to elucidate and support historical studies.