INDEPENDENT ORDER OF ODD FELLOWS
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows has a similar origin story to the Freemasons. Back in the 1600s in England, there was no social safety net, so groups of craftsmen would band together to take care of each other and each other’s families and to socialize. These groups were called “guilds,” and every trade had one – the blacksmiths, the masons, the carpenters, etc. However, in small towns and cities, there were not enough people in any particular trade to form a guild, and “odd” tradesman with various specialties banded together to form guilds called “Odd Fellows.”
In 1819, a British expatriate living in Baltimore, Thomas Wildey (1782-1861), who had been an Odd Fellow back home, decided to try to find other members of the Order in his new home city, so he put a small ad in a local newspaper, giving notice of an Odd Fellow meeting at a pub. He had some luck, and other Odd Fellows showed up. This proved to be the first meeting of what would become the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF), which would become the largest Odd Fellow organization in the world. You can read a more detailed history of Odd Fellowship in North America here: https://odd-fellows.org/history/wildeys-odd-fellowship/
By 1900, there were over one million members of the IOOF, and today there are lodges in every state and in countries worldwide from Europe to the Caribbean to Africa and Australia and the Philippines. You can find a complete list of jurisdictions here: http://www.ioof.org/Jurisdictions.
The IOOF was also the first fraternal order to admit women, when it created the lodges for women, who were called the Rebekahs, named for the Biblical character.
In the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, many famous people were members of both the Odd Fellows and the Masons. Some famous Odd Fellows include:
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
US Chief Justice Earl Warren
Prime Minister William Churchill
King of Sweden Gustav V
King of Norway Olav V
California Governor Goodwin Knight
Iconic Lawman Wyatt Earp
Aviator Charles Lindbergh
Actor Charlie Chaplin
For more famous Odd Fellows and Rebekahs: https://odd-fellows.org/history/notable-odd-fellows/