Twentieth Century Orient


 * ''Not to be confused with Masonic Grand Orients, such as the Order of the Grand Orient de France.

The 20th Century Orient or Order of the Grand Orient was an American fraternal organisation, active in the late nineteenth century, professedly dedicated to higher social aims of equality and reason, but mainly notable for hosting parties and parades. The initiation ritual of the order, as published by Pettibone Brothers of Cincinnati (and later Allen Publishing Co. of New York), was a burlesque pastiche of pseudo-Orientalism, pseudo-Masonry, drinking songs, and vulgar in-jokes, often outright racist and sexist in character.