Residents of Houghton found social interaction through many clubs and organizations built around extended families, shared interests, religion, ethnicity, morality, and mutual aid. Village businessmen formed The Houghton Club to spread useful knowledge and build a library, and in 1910 they constructed a clubhouse with a library, dining room, parlor, billiard hall, card rooms, and guest accommodations. Local Freemasons also erected a major building in 1910; their Masonic orders emphasized intellectual improvement, moral correctitude, and charity, and their temple included retail and office rental space for income, with banquet rooms and a lodge hall above, along with Masonic symbols worked into the stonework. Church and ethnic groups offered immigrants the security of familiar traditions, with the Knights of Columbus associated with St. Ignatius Catholic Church drawing German, Irish, and French immigrants, while Lutheran churches attracted many Scandinavians. Many religious and secular organizations promoted high moral character and offered men an alternative to drinking and gambling, while temperance groups such as Kupari Alueen Raittius Liitto worked to advance prohibition and helped encourage ratification of the eighteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol from 1919 to 1933. Ethnic clubs such as the Germania Society preserved language and old-country customs and often aided people in Europe who could not travel to North America. Other associations functioned as beneficial or insurance fraternities, including the Société St. Jean Baptist de Houghton, assisting members during illness, incapacity, and death at a time when few employers offered life or health insurance.