THE ORDER OF UNITED COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS

THE ORDER OF UNITED COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. The Order of United Commercial Travelers was formed on January 16, 1888 by six men in a meeting at the Neil House in Columbus, Ohio to provide a society for traveling salesmen, or commercial travelers.

The original objectives of the order were to aid its members and their dependents in financial and material matters, establish funds to indemnify members in case of disability or accidental death, establish a widows and orphans reserve fund and obtain just and equitable favors for traveling salesmen. The organization also wished to operate as a secret society, whose aim was to unite and raise the moral and social caliber of its members. In fact, in at one time referred to itself as "travelers' masonry".

The sample case, a vital tool in the life of a commercial traveler, became the symbol of UCT. The original emblem of the organization consisted of a gold crescent with a sample case suspended within the points of the crescent.

In 1956, the Order founded the UCT Fraternal Foundation which has provided income to the Retarded Children Teachers Reserve Fund. Early in the Order history it paid out $25 a week to members disabled as the result of an accident, and beginning in 1894 it paid out $5,000 in accidental death benefits. (1)

Dubuque Council 255 of the United Commercial Travelers was organized on February 9, 1904. (2)

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Source:

1. "Order of United Commercial Travelers," Wikipedia Online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_United_Commercial_Travelers_of_America

2. Local Travelers' Club 25 Years Old," Telegraph-Herald and Times-Journal, January 27, 1929, p. 25