Kappa Delta was founded on October 23, 1897 at the State Female Normal School (now Longwood University) in Farmville, Virginia. Its founders are Lenora Ashmore Blackiston, Sara Turner White, Mary Sommerville Sparks Hendrick., and Julia Gardiner Tyler Wilson, the granddaughter of U.S. President John Tyler.
In 1902, Kappa Delta’s second chapter was established at the Chatham Episcopal Institute (now Chatham Hall) in Virginia. A short-lived chapter, it was forced off campus in 1904 by the school’s administration. Among the women initiated into the chapter during those two years was Georgia O’Keeffe. She enrolled at Chatham in 1903 and graduated in 1905. It was the Institute’s principal and art instructor, Elizabeth May Wilson, who encouraged O’Keeffe’s interest in art.
After her graduation from Chatham, she continued to study art in addition to teaching. In 1923, O’Keeffe said, “I found that I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn’t say in any other way – things that I had no words for.”
Know as the “Mother of American Modernism,” O’Keeffe died in March 6, 1986. A prolific artist, she lived nearly a century, and left her mark on the art world. She won the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor,
O’Keeffe’s legacy is preserved at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1998, the O’Keeffe Art and Leadership Program for Girls was established there and it provides opportunities for young women ages 11-13. Each summer, the Kappa Delta Foundation funds two paid internship opportunities working with the leadership program.
