Category Archives: Yale University

Begin the Beguine on Cole Porter’s Birthday

Cole Porter was born on June 9, 1891, in Peru, Indiana. His family was well-to-do thanks to the industriousness of his grandfather, J.O. Cole, who struck gold in California and returned to Indiana to parlay it into a greater fortune. … Continue reading

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95 Years Ago a Pi Phi and a Phi Gam Became FLOTUS and POTUS

I should call this blog “I get by with a little help from my friends.” This time it was a post by the Phi Gamma Delta Archives (and Archivist Towner Blackstock) that reminded me about the events of the early … Continue reading

Posted in Amherst College, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Fran Favorite, Grace Coolidge, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Phi Gamma Delta, Pi Beta Phi, The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi, University of Vermont, Yale University | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on 95 Years Ago a Pi Phi and a Phi Gam Became FLOTUS and POTUS

“You Rang?” on Alpha Sigma Phi’s Founders’ Day

Alpha Sigma Phi was founded on December 6, 1845, at Yale University (it was then known as Yale College). The Yale of 1845 was worlds away from the Yale of today. In 1845, only a very small percentage of American … Continue reading

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On Beta Theta Pi’s Founders’ Day, Olympian Eddie Eagan

August 13, 1839, was Commencement Day at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Five days earlier, on August 8, at the first official meeting, eight young men established Beta Theta Pi, the first men’s fraternity founded west of the Allegheny Mountains. … Continue reading

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A Cuba Connection as Delta Kappa Epsilon Turns 172

Today is the day on which Delta Kappa Epsilon was founded 172 years ago. There are many people, places, and things which have DKE connections. I’ve learned about many of them through This Day in Deke History posts on social … Continue reading

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Alpha Sigma Phi’s 170th with a Price

Alpha Sigma Phi was founded on December 6, 1845, at Yale University (it was then known as Yale College). The Yale of 1845 was worlds away from the Yale of today. In 1845, only a very small percentage of American … Continue reading

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Harper Lee, Thornton Wilder, Thurmon Munson et al.

Harper Lee, Chi Omega, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning To Kill a Mockingbird, announced the publication of her second book, Go Set a Watchman.  She finished the book in the mid-1950s and it has the same characters and is set … Continue reading

Posted in Alpha Delta Phi, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Alpha Sigma Phi, Chi Omega, Delta Delta Delta, Delta Upsilon, DePauw University, Fran Favorite, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Kappa Sigma, Northwestern University, Notable Fraternity Women, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, Yale University | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Harper Lee, Thornton Wilder, Thurmon Munson et al.

The First American Graduate School? Johns Hopkins University

It’s February and all over the country, college seniors are thinking about their plans after graduation. Grad school will be the default for many of them. Do those young people realize that there was a time when going to graduate … Continue reading

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Sis Doc, the Lucky Xs, and More

Today, January 8, is the date of Dr. Charles Richardson’s birth. He was born in 1864.  A Fayetteville, Arkansas, dentist, he did his undergraduate work at Emory & Henry College in Virginia and then studied dentistry at Vanderbilt University. He … Continue reading

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A Sunday Afternoon Steeped in the College Culture of the Late 1860s

Monmouth College, in Monmouth, Illinois, has digitized its student newspapers. I spent Sunday afternoon trying to read them. Unfortunately, they were not printed on the best of paper and the pdfs  are sometimes next to impossible to decipher. What I … Continue reading

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