This novel follows significant figures in modern history, including the Founding Fathers of the United States, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Paul Revere, who were Freemasons. Also, Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian freedom fighter, was also one, as were the composers Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and writers François Marie Arouet de Voltaire and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The Meaning of Masonry explores the order's beliefs, cryptic rites, and symbols and uncovers its ultimate purpose.