Fraternity and Sorority Members Lobby on Capitol Hill – April 24, 2013

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

On April 24, 2013, 200 fraternity and sorority members, collegiate and alumni (of the men’s groups)/alumnae (of the women’s groups), will be Washington D.C. to lobby on Capitol Hill. The Fraternal Government Relations Coalition (FGRC), is a group bringing together the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC), and the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee (FSPAC).

This year, the FGRC’s focus is the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act of 2013 (CHIA S 781). If enacted it would make a simple change in the tax code. This change would allow tax deductible status to donations made to fraternity and sorority educational foundations for use in infrastructure improvements and the installation of fire detection/ prevention systems in local not-for-profit student housing.

Campus residence halls were not available when a good many of the Greek-letter organizations present at this lobby effort were founded. Providing room and board for members, especially during the late 1800s and early 1900s, was a vital role provided by these organizations. That role is still a very important one. Each year,  fraternities and sororities provide housing for more than 250,000 college students; one out of every eight college students lives in a fraternity or sorority house. Allowing alumni/ae the opportunity to donate funds on a tax-deductible basis will help improve fraternity and sorority housing. If CHIA is enacted, it is estimated that it will inject an estimated $300 million dollars into the construction industry throughout the United States.

You can follow the lobbying effort on twitter using hashtags #passCHIA and #GreekDC. Contributions to the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee can be made at www.fspac.org.

A sorority house on a midwestern campus. This chapter house, along with countless others on campuses all across the country would greatly benefit by the enactment of CHIA S 781.


 

 

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The Early History of the Women’s Fraternity System at the University of Kansas

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

By 1870, eight state universities accepted women; these institutions were the Universities of Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, and California (Newcomer, 1959).  Women’s fraternities provided the female students with a support system in an educational environment that was sometimes hostile to them, especially during the early years of coeducation.

In 1873, the Kansas Alpha chapter of Pi Beta Phi came into existence through the labors of Sara Richardson, a member of the Pi Beta Phi chapter at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois.  Richardson had spent the summer of 1872 at home in Lawrence, Kansas.  She had three sisters who were enrolled at Kansas University.  When, in the spring of 1873, Richardson found that some Kansas  men were forming a chapter of Beta Theta Pi, she informed her Kansas sisters and friends.  The Kansas Alpha chapter of Pi Beta Phi was chartered on April 1, 1873 with seven members, including May, Flora, and Alma Richardson (Flora would be the University’s first valedictorian). 

The first meetings were held in the University’s music room on Thursday afternoons with the janitor supplying the key to unlock the doors (Richardson, 1885).  The chapter’s first party at Kansas University, one to honor Sara Richardson, was dubbed by the Chancellor, John Fraser, as a “Cookie Shine,” a tradition that was quickly adopted to other chapters and to this day continues to be a special part of membership in Pi Beta Phi. 

Charter member Gertrude Boughton Blackwelder[1] (1914) described the women who formed the chapter, “Forty years ago a young woman pursuing a college course found herself the target for many criticisms and queries.  She was risking her health for the sake of a little learning, – she was crowding her mind with a mass of information much of it utterly useless, – her interests were being called away from the traditional sphere of women – to marry and bear children, – and what was to be the outcome?  It was difficult, I remember, for us to find replies to these questions.  We had to confess our inability to see clearly a definite use for the higher mathematics, for a knowledge of science, that elusive and ever-changing study, – for the dates and facts of history we were so industriously acquiring, – the smattering of art, languages, etc. etc.  But we had entered a field hitherto denied to women, and we must prove our ability to cope with men in intellectual work.  We studied because we were eager to know things, and the utilitarian side of the matter troubled us little.  President Hadley of Yale has illuminated the subject by saying “that you can teach a student to study things that he is not going to use by methods that he is going to use.”  So it seems to-day that our minds were developed and trained by the work we did and by the efforts to master the subjects which had been the traditional province of men.” (pp. 312-313)

The Kappa chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta at the University of Kansas came into beginning in a most round about manner.  A letter of inquiry was sent to the Eta chapter in Ann Arbor rather than Alpha chapter at DePauw University.  Eta member Lee Bird visited Lawrence, Kansas, to install the chapter and on March 18, 1881, the Kappa chapter was installed.  Four years later the chapter took on the task of publishing the first edition of the Kappa Alpha Theta Journal[2] (Dodge, 1930).

In the early 1880s a group of women discussed forming a third women’s fraternity on the University of Kansas campus.  A fraternity man on campus had a fraternity brother whose wife was a Kappa Kappa Gamma alumna.  Through this contact, on December 17, 1883, the Omega chapter was installed with eight charter members (Walker, 1903).

 

Kappa Chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta, University of Kansas, late 1800s

 

Notable University of Kansas alumnae initiated into National Panhellenic Conference organizations prior to 1902.

Alden, Jenette Hubbard Bolles, D. O., University of Kansas Pi Beta Phi, 1885, physician.  One of the first woman to study osteopathy, she graduated from the American School of Osteopathy at Kirksville, Missouri, in 1894.  She became a member of the first class ever organized to teach osteopathy at the American School of Osteopathy and was a professor at the school from 1893-1895.  She headed the departments of anatomy, gynecology and obstetrics at the Colorado College of Osteopathy from 1897 until 1904.  Beginning in 1904, Alden was in private practice with her husband in Denver, Colorado (Pomeroy, 1909).

Berry, Josephine Thorndike, University of Kansas, Pi Beta Phi, 1893, hotel executive.  After spending many years teaching home economics at the collegiate level, Berry became the builder and operator of Thorndike Hall, an apartment hotel for women in Kansas City, Missouri (Howes, 1939).

Clarke, Edith M., University of Kansas Kappa Alpha Theta, 1895, Phi Beta Kappa, librarian at the University of Kansas (Bell, 1902).

Crotty-Davenport, Gertrude, University of Kansas Pi Beta Phi, 1889, scientist.  She assisted her husband who was head of the biological station at the Carnegie Institute at Cold Spring Harbor, New York.  She co-authored a book entitled Introduction to zoology (Bartol-Theiss, 1919).

Goss, Alice Morgan, M.D., University of Kansas Pi Beta Phi, 1875, physician.  She started medical studies at San Francisco Homeopathic School and was later graduated from the Chicago Hahnemann College.  Specializing in the diseases of women and children, she was in private practice in San Francisco from 1890 until 1930. (Pomeroy, 1909; “In memoriam,” 1935). 

Haskell, Carrie Goss, M.D., University of Kansas Pi Beta Phi, 1873. She attended St. Louis Medical College in 1875 and the Hahnemann Homeopathic College of Chicago, from which she received a medical degree in 1878.  She was in private practice in several California cities (Pomeroy, 1909).

Lockwood, Laura E., Ph.D., University of Kansas Kappa Kappa Gamma, professor.  She received her Ph.D. from Yale University, wrote a lexicon on Milton’s use of words and taught at Wellesley College (“Kappas known to fame,” 1915, October).

Merrill, Katherine, University of Kansas Kappa Alpha Theta, 1889, Assistant Professor in English at the University of Illinois (Bell, 1902).

Miles-Woodward, Josephine, University of Kansas Pi Beta Phi, 1882, journalist.  She was a war correspondent for the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette during the Spanish-American War and was the first woman sent to the island in that capacity.  She obtained an interview with General Weyler (Bartol-Theiss, 1919

Rohe, Alice, University of Kansas Pi Beta Phi, 1896, journalist.  She was the feature writer at the New York Evening World for five years (Bartol-Theiss, 1919).

Schaum, Madge, D. D. S., University of Kansas Kappa Alpha Theta, 1895, dentist.  She studied dentistry in Chicago and was a practicing dentist (Bell, 1902).

Simpson, Mamie, University of Kansas Kappa Alpha Theta, artist.  In 1888, she had a painting accepted by the Paris Salon.  After returning from European study, she began teaching oil painting at the University of Kansas (“Personals,” 1888) .

Walker, Mary L. Simpson, University of Kansas Kappa Alpha Theta, 1891, Professor of Art at Kansas State University (Bell, 1902).


[1] In 1893, she read a paper before the Congress of Women’s Fraternities at the 1893 Colombian Exposition in Chicago (Spring, 1936).

[2] The Key of Kappa Kappa Gamma and The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi also had their beginnings at the University of Kansas. There is a blog post on is site about it.

From Coeducation and the History of Women’s Fraternities 1867-1902 by Frances DeSimone Becque, 2002. (c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistorycom.

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The Robbie Page Memorial Fund Honors a National President’s Son

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Sigma Sigma Sigma was founded on April 20, 1898, at the State Female Normal School in Farmville, Virginia (now Longwood University). The founders are Lucy Wright, Margaret Batten, Elizabeth Watkins, Louise Davis, Martha Trent Featherston, Lelia Scott, Isabella Merrick, and Sallie Michie.

Mabel Lee Walton, a charter member of the Gamma chapter at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, served as the sorority’s third National President from 1913-1947. She also served as the President of the Association of Education Sororities before Sigma Sigma Sigma became a member of the National Panhellenic Conference in 1947.

Tri Sigma’s fourth president, Mary Hastings Holloway Page (Lovejoy), was Walton’s niece.  A member of the Alpha chapter, she was initiated with the gold Tri Sigma badge that belonged to her “Aunt May.” While working in Washington, D.C., she met a gentleman from New Hampshire, Robertson Page, and they married in April 1940.

The Pages’ son, Robertson Page II was born on May 1, 1946. According the Years Remember of Sigma Sigma Sigma 1898-1953, “Robbie was six weeks old when he attended his first Sigma officers’ conference, two months old when his father first saw him (his father was on special assignment in Germany), and six months old when he attended the Regional Meet at Richmond, Virginia, where his mother was officer-in-charge.” A devoted Tri Sigma from the minute she pledged the organization, she was elected National President in 1947.

The Pages lived in Massachusetts when Robbie attended his first day of kindergarten. It was also his last day of school. The next morning he had what the doctors described as an overwhelming case of bulbar poliomyelitis, a form of polio. Four days later, on September 15, 1951, he died in an iron lung. His bereaved parents wanted to help spare other parents the pain they so intensely felt at the loss of their precious young son and Tri Sigmas the country over wanted to do something to ease the family’s pain. The Robbie Page Memorial Fund was created to fund medical research.

Robertson “Robbie” Page II

Today’s collegians have no idea what the world was like when polio could strike in the blink of an eye. The Robbie Page Memorial Fund became Tri Sigma’s official philanthropy in 1954. The Fund helped during the Salk vaccine trials. When polio was essentially defeated in the United States, the focus of the Fund changed to “therapeutic play,” when that was a relatively new field. Today, the fund helps supports play therapy for hospitalized children and libraries, playrooms, and programs at hospitals where children undergo long-term care. The National Therapeutic Recreation Society has recognized Tri Sigma for its support of Child Life and Play Therapy programs.

(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013

 

 

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Happy Founders’ Day, Alpha Xi Delta (and a Connection to Carl Sandburg)

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Alpha Xi Delta was founded at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois on April 17, 1893. Its founders are Cora Bollinger Block, Alice Bartlett Bruner, Bertha Cook Evans, Harriett Luella McCollum, Lucy W. Gilmer, Lewie Strong Taylor, Almira Lowry Cheney, Frances Elisabeth Cheney, Eliza Drake Curtis Everton, and Julia Maude Foster. At age 15, Alice Barlett Bruner was the youngest of Alpha Xi Delta’s founders; Eliza Curtis Everton, a 25-year-old widow, was the oldest founder.

Coeducational from its beginning, Lombard College was founded in 1853 by the Universalist Church. Originally called the Illinois Liberal Institute, its name was changed in 1855, after a fire damaged much of the college. Businessman and farmer Benjamin Lombard gave the college a large gift to build a new building and the institution was named in his honor. Among Lombard’s students was Carl Sandburg.

The book Alpha Xi Delta, A 100-Year History recounts an interesting story which Jessie Brown Robson recalled many years after it happened. Early in its history, the chapter opened a bank account in preparation for the organization’s desired expansion to other campuses. Founder Frances Cheney, whom Robson called “a saint,” wanted to lend some of the savings to the boy who mowed the Lombard College lawn for him to use for his tuition. “Cora (Bollinger Block) was indignant and said the money was for expansion,” wrote Jessie. “She said, ‘Can’t you see when Alpha Xi Delta will be in every first-rate college? How can we do that if we give money to Carl, who would probably hop a freight train to Heaven knows where?'” Robson added, “If Cora had known that the same Carl Sandburg would be known all over the world as one of America’s greatest writers, maybe she would not have been so stingy with the money.”


Carl Sandburg, pictured second on the right in the second row, was captain of his Lombard College Basketball Team. (Photo courtesy of the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Galesburg, IL)

In 1902, Iowa Wesleyan College’s Chapter S of the P.E.O. Sisterhood became the Beta Chapter of Alpha Xi Delta. With this move, Alpha Xi Delta became a national organization, rather than just a local on the Lombard campus, and the P.E.O. Sisterhood became an organization of community adult women.

The 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression hit Lombard College extremely hard and the college closed its doors. The last class graduated in 1930. Knox College invited the Lombard students to transfer to Knox, with the same tuition cost as Lombard, and without loss of academic standing. Knox also incorporated the Lombard alumni into the Knox Alumni Association.

Ladies Hall, Lombard College


 

To read more about the history of the Illinois State Chapter of P.E.O. visit the link to the page about it and Lulu Corkhill Williams  http://wp.me/P20I1i-Qf .

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013.

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Happy Founders’ Day to FarmHouse and Triangle Fraternities, 2 of the 3 NIC Organizations Without Greek Letters

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Acacia, FarmHouse and Triangle Fraternities are the only members of the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) that do not use Greek-letters. The latter two celebrate Founders’ Day on the same day. What’s also interesting to note is that both were formed for students in certain majors. In FarmHouse’s case it was agriculture. For Triangle it was engineering. Both organizations have since expanded membership eligibility criteria.

FarmHouse was founded on April 15, 1905 at the University of Missouri. D. Howard Doane, one of the seven founders, conceived the idea for the fraternity. The other founders are Melvin E. Sherwin, Robert F. Howard, Claude B. Hutchinson, Henry H. Krusekopf, Earl W. Rusk, and Henry P. Rusk. The young men were attending a Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) Bible study in the spring of 1905. They discussed organizing a club and renting a house so that they could live together. It was Doane who envisioned a “farmers club,” and developed a plan. A second chapter was formed at the University of Nebraska in 1911 and a third chapter was chartered at the University of Illinois in 1914.

At the 1978 Conclave, the fraternity revised its membership criteria to include students whose subjects of study “can be applied toward a degree in agriculture or related fields, or he has a rural background, or he shares an agricultural interest; or he demonstrates qualities of character, scholarship and professional excellence to which FarmHouse men aspire.”

Triangle Fraternity was founded at the University of Illinois in the fall of 1906.  It celebrates Founders’ Day on April 15, the date in 1907 on which the Incorporation papers were granted by the state of Illinois. Sixteen civil engineering students conceived the idea to foster fellowship while in college and later as working professionals. Triangle’s founders are Edwin B. Adams, Wilbur G. Burroughs, Stanley G. Cutler, Ruby O. Harder, Theron R. Howser, Robert Emmett Keough, Thomas E. Lowry, Milton H. McCoy, Meryl S. Morgan, Ernest B. Nettleton, Raymond C. Pierce, Franklin N. Ropp, Arthur Schwerin, Charles M. Slaymaker, Charles E. Waterhouse, and Emil A. Weber.

Triangle became a national organization when similar groups at Purdue University and Ohio State were installed as Triangle Fraternity chapters in 1909 and 1911, respectively. At first, membership was limited exclusively to civil engineering students. In 1920, architecture and all engineering majors were added by a national referendum. In 1961, science students in chemistry, mathematics, and physics became eligible for membership. In 1981, computer science was added to the list.


 

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Musings on a Western Union Telegram from Chi O to Pi Phi

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

This gem was found in a 1957 scrapbook. Evidently the Syracuse University Greek Week skit competition was fairly intense that year. The gracious ladies of the Chi Omega chapter sent a telegram to congratulate the winners, the sisters of the Pi Beta Phi chapter. The telegram’s message was  also phoned to the chapter according to the red stamp on the right side. While today’s collegians send tweets, e-mails and texts, the women back then sent Western Union telegrams.

The graphic on the telegram is what caught my eye, but the Panhellenic mindedness of the note is what tugged at my heartstrings. The 26 National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) organizations are sisters of a sort and this telegram embodies that message. And although it is a few days later than Sibling Day (who knew there was even a Sibling Day!) I think it’s a perfect reminder that we NPC groups are in this together.

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com

 

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Fraternity Women Who Were Lawyers, 1867-1902 (When Women Could Not Vote!)

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

During the time frame of this study, 1867-1902, women had few legal rights.  Therefore, it is interesting to note that several of these early fraternity women became lawyers at a time when women were not yet allowed to vote.  In 1870 there were five female lawyers in the United States. A year earlier, the first woman was admitted to the Bar. (Newcomer, 1959).

In 1875, Susan Farrow, a member of the DePauw University chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma, was a lawyer in Indianapolis (“Iota roster,” 1919).

Grace Raymond Hebard was an engineering major at the University of Iowa; she was also a member of the Pi Beta Phi chapter.  In 1882, she became the first woman to receive a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Iowa.  After graduation, she moved to Wyoming, became a draftsman in a Cheyenne surveyor’s office and worked her way up to deputy state engineer (Scharff, 1989).  Hebard was the first woman admitted to the Bar in the state of Wyoming (“Pi Phis in the public eye,” 1922, June). 

Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard

Jessie E. Wright Whitcomb, a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta chapter at the University of Vermont, graduated from Boston University Law School.  She was admitted to the Bar in Kansas.  In 1888, she married a fellow Boston Law School student and they established a private practice (“Personals,” 1889). 

Emma Eaton White, a University of Iowa Pi Beta Phi member from the class of 1884, earned her LL.D. from the University of Michigan.  She served as a legal editor from 1895 to 1900 for both West Publishing and Bobbs-Merrill and was the first woman to hold that position (Bartol-Theiss, 1919).  Eaton served as Assistant Attorney General of Indiana and was elected reporter of the Supreme Court of Indiana (“Personal,” 1925, January).  Nellie Peery, another Iowa Pi Beta Phi member, this time from Iowa State University in the 1890s, was also a lawyer (“Some women we want to know,” 1894 ).

Elva Hulburd Young who was initiated into the Cornell University chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta in the 1890s practiced law in Springfield, Massachusetts (Bell, 1902).  Alice Boarman Baldridge, a Pi Beta Phi from the Sophie Newcomb College (Tulane) class of 1893, was an attorney (Howes, 1939).

E. Jean Nelson Penfield, a DePauw University Kappa Kappa Gamma member from the class of 1893, was a suffragist, lawyer and parliamentary law expert.  From 1910 until 1912 she served as chairman of the Woman’s Suffrage Party of New York City (“Kappas known to fame,” 1913, February).  She completed her law course at New York University (“Kappas known to fame,” 1914).  She and Pi Beta Phi member Carrie Chapman Catt toured the West working for the ratification of the woman’s suffrage amendment.  Catt and Penfield helped found the League of Women Voters.  Penfield also served her fraternity as Grand President from 1900-1902.

E. Jean Nelson (Penfield)

In 1898, Barnard College Kappa Kappa Gamma Jessica B. Garretson Cosgrove earned a law degree from the New York University Law School.  She was admitted to the New York State Bar shortly thereafter (Randle, 1913; Foley, 1977).

One of the first women to graduate from the Minnesota School of Law was Marie Antoinette Palmer Bond, a University of Minnesota Pi Beta Phi.  Bond was admitted to the Minnesota Bar in 1900 (Theiss, 1906).

Ohio State University Delta Delta Delta Ivy Kellerman Reed, class of 1898, was a graduate of the Washington College of Law.  She was on the faculty of Iowa State University and chairman of the Esperanto Association of North America (Priddy, 1932).  Reed also served her fraternity as Grand Treasurer from 1900 until 1902 (Haller, 1988).  Another Delta Delta Delta member Annette Abbott Adams from the University of California – Berkeley chapter was admitted to the California Bar in 1912.  She served as a United States Assistant District Attorney and a District Attorney.  In 1920, she was the first woman appointed as Assistant Attorney General (Howes, 1939).

A University of Missouri Pi Beta Phi, Gratia E. Woodside, was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of Missouri in June 1900.  At that point, she became the only woman to try a case before that body.  In 1903, Woodside opened a private practice in St. Louis and became the only female lawyer in St. Louis and only one of two female lawyers in Missouri (“Some professional Pi Phi women,” 1904).

Helen McCormick, a St. Lawrence University Delta Delta Delta member, was a prosecutor.  Appointed in 1910, she was one of the first female prosecutors in the greater New York area (Haller, 1988).

Although Alpha Omicron Pi wasn’t a founding member of NPC, one of its founders, Helen St. Clair Mullen, needs to included on this list. A Barnard College alumna, Class of 1898, she graduated at the top of her law class at New York University. She also installed the organization’s Nu Chapter at NYU. She later served on the New York Board of Education and as a Barnard Collelge Trustee.


 

 

 

* I only included information about members of the seven founding NPC groups since my aim was to study the growth of the system between 1867 and 1902, when the need for an umbrella organization became very evident. If there are additional women from the organizations that joined NPC after 1902, I would be happy to add their names to the post. Legendary Chi Omega Mary Love Collins is one who quickly comes to mind, but I do not think she became a lawyer prior to 1902.

Pages 173-176, Coeducation and the History of Women’s Fraternities 1867-1902, by Frances DeSimone Becque, 2002. 

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com

Posted in Alpha Phi, Delta Delta Delta, DePauw University, Fran Favorite, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, National Panhellenic Conference, Notable Fraternity Women, Notable Sorority Women, Pi Beta Phi, Sorority History, University of Minnesota, Women's Fraternity History | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Fraternity Women Who Were Lawyers, 1867-1902 (When Women Could Not Vote!)

Goucher College – Home of a Once Thriving Women’s Fraternity System

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

 

The Women’s College of Baltimore, today known as Goucher College, was founded in 1885 and graduated its first class in 1892.  It was one of the few women’s colleges hosting chapters of national women’s fraternities.  There is evidence of local women’s fraternities at women’s colleges including Smith College, Mount Holyoke College and Wellesley College (Martin, 1907; “Legenda,” 1903; Solomon, 1985), but in those instances, the college administrations forbade national organizations from organizing on campus. Goucher College was an anomaly, with at one time, eight active chapters of women’s fraternities.

Alpha Phi’s Zeta chapter was installed on December 1, 1891, with 11 charter members. Blanche Caraway and Cora Allen McElroy, members of Alpha Phi’s chapter at Northwestern University, installed the chapter (McElroy, 1913).

In 1891, Delta Gamma once again entered a women’s college with its Psi II chapter. It took this name,  in part, because it was south of the Mason-Dixon line and was located at a woman’s college.  Psi had been the name of the founding chapter at the Lewis School; that chapter closed two years earlier.

In 1893, the Zeta chapter of Gamma Phi Beta was installed. Five charter members were contacted by the Alpha chapter and on March 24, 1893, the Zeta chapter became a reality (McCurley, 1913). It was followed by the Alpha Delta chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta in 1896.

The Maryland Alpha chapter of Pi Beta Phi was organized by Elizabeth K. Culver, from the University of Colorado chapter, Helen and Elizabeth Lamb, from the Swarthmore College chapter, and Loe Mary Ware, from the Nebraska Methodist College chapter.  It was installed by Florence P. Chase [Cass], Grand Secretary, on January 9, 1897 (Helmick, 1915).

The Xi chapter of Delta Delta Delta was founded as a local organization, Tau Delta.  It was, according to Haller (1988), “the first of Tri Delta’s southern chapters” (p. 503).  The institution was also the first women’s college to host a Delta Delta Delta chapter.  Xi chapter was installed on November 25, 1898.  In 1942, Delta Delta Delta was the first NPC group to leave campus when the university made overtures that the fraternities would not be welcome when the college moved to Towson (Haller, 1988).

Although Tri Delta was the first to leave the campus, all the women’s fraternities, including two additional ones installed after 1902, Alpha Gamma Delta in 1908 and Kappa Kappa Gamma in 1933, were disbanded in the 1940s and 1950s. When the college moved from downtown Baltimore to suburban Towson, Maryland, the administration told the NPC groups that they would no longer be welcomed on campus (Musser, 1990). My husband’s mother, an Alpha Phi, was a student a Goucher when the campus made the move. The Alpha Phi chapter closed prior to her graduation.

 

Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter members enjoying a sunny day, circa late 1930s/early 1940s (courtesy of Kappa Kappa Gamma Archives)

 

Goucher College was also one of the few campus without housing for women’s fraternities.  According to  Musser (1990) the group’s physical facilities “usually consisted of little more than a rented floor and a furnished clubroom in a nearby townhouse where members could meet and hold dances and parties” (p. 133).  However, in providing a central meeting spot for members, interaction was fostered between on-campus students and commuters.  This benefit of the women’s fraternities was not recognized until after they were abolished (Musser, 1990).

Goucher is no longer a women’s college. Its trustees voted in 1986 to admit men.

 May Lansfield Keller was a charter member of the Pi Beta Phi chapter at the Women’s College of Baltimore (Goucher College).  She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg.  Dr. Keller was the first dean of Westhampton College (lovingly known as the “Iron Dean”), the University of Richmond’s coordinate college, and she had a leadership role in the Southern Association  of College Women, a forerunner of the American Association of University Women.  Consequently, she played an integral role in  the education of women in the south.  She also served as Pi Beta Phi’s Grand President from 1908-1918 and attended several NPC meetings as Pi Beta Phi’s delegate.

(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com. Much of this information is from my dissertation, Coeducation and the History of Women’s Fraternities, 1867-1902.

Posted in Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Phi, Delta Delta Delta, Fran Favorite, Gamma Phi Beta, GLO, Goucher College, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Kappa Alpha Theta, Pi Beta Phi, Sorority History | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Goucher College – Home of a Once Thriving Women’s Fraternity System

The Syracuse – Michigan Match-Up, the Non-Athletic Version

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Syracuse and Michigan play a basketball game tonight. It’s part of the coveted Final Four of NCAA basketball. The Final Four usually not a big deal in the Becque household (well, at least not in my life – my sons are the sports fanatics). This time it’s personal. I am the Syracuse graduate; my husband the Michigan alumnus. Our daughter has a Syracuse Master’s degree and is an alumna initiate of the University of Michigan Pi Phi chapter.

You can get the scoop on the basketball teams at other web-sites, but this one is about things I find fascinating.

The Michigan Wolverine goes head to head against Otto the Orange. Maize (a fancy word for corn yellow) and blue versus orange. Michigan’s alma mater is the Yellow and Blue, whose lyrics were written by a Michigan professor, Charles Mills Gayley, in 1886. The fight song, The Victors (Hail to the victors valiant! Hail to the conq’ring heroes! Hail! Hail! to Michigan, the leaders and best. Champions of the West!) was written by a Michigan student, Louis Elbel, in 1898.  Syracuse’s alma mater (Where the vale of Onondaga, Meets the eastern sky, Proudly stands our Alma Mater, On her hilltop high.) was written by Junius W. Stevens in 1893.

Three National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) organizations were founded at Syracuse. They are called the Syracuse Triad. Alpha Phi was founded in 1872. Gamma Phi Beta followed in 1874 and Alpha Gamma Delta was founded in 1904. One NPC organization, Theta Phi Alpha, was founded at Michigan in 1912.

Acacia, a men’s social fraternity, was founded at Michigan in 1904 and Alpha Phi Delta was founded at Syracuse in 1914.

The two campuses also shared a President, Dr. Erastus Otis Haven; his daughter Frances was a founder of Gamma Phi Beta (for more on Dr. Haven, see http://wp.me/p20I1i-e5).

The Michigan diploma’s first line, “To all who may read these letters, Greetings” is a favorite of mine. Syracuse’s diploma has a similar first line, “To all who read these presents, Greeting.” The closely worded diplomas harken back to a time when graduates carried their diploma with them to prove their educational status. But they are not playing diplomas; they’re playing basketball. Let’s go Orange!

There are several other posts about these campuses including:

http://wp.me/p20I1i-6h (The history of the women’s fraternity system at Syracuse)

http://wp.me/p20I1i-cC (The history of the women’s fraternity system at Michigan)

Posted in Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Phi, Fran Favorite, Gamma Phi Beta, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Syracuse University, Theta Phi Alpha, University of Michigan | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The Syracuse – Michigan Match-Up, the Non-Athletic Version

The ΧΩ Connection – Founders’ Day and a Greek Theater at the University of Arkansas

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Happy Founders’ Day to Chi Omega!  With the help of a Fayetteville dentist, Kappa Sigma Dr. Charles Richardson, Chi Omega was founded by Ina Mae Boles, Jean Vincenheller, Jobelle Holcombe, and Alice Simonds on April 5, 1895 at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Richardson is considered a founder and is lovingly known as “Sis Doc.” He crafted the first badge out of dental gold. The founding chapter at Arkansas is the Psi Chapter.

(Photo courtesy of Lyn Harris, Chi Omega’s Archivist)

On June 28, 1930, Chi Omega presented a gift to the University of Arkansas to commemorate its founding at the university. Dr. Richardson and Mary Love Collins, Chi Omega’s National President for 42 years and NPC Chairman from 1919-1921, conceived the idea. Their vision was to create a replica of the Theatre of Dionysus which sits at the foot of the Acropolis in Greece. The cost of the theatre in 1930 was $31,225 (more than $400,000 in 2013 funds).

The theatre’s five aisles honor the five Chi Omega founders and the columns represent the fourteen original members of the Psi Chapter. Chi Omega’s ideals are expressed in the words on the frieze above the columns – KNOWLEDGE, INTEGRITY, COURAGE, CULTURE and INTELLIGENCE. A tablet bears the inscription, “Given to the University of Arkansas by Chi Omega as an expression of appreciation for its founding and as a symbol of its devotion to the human struggle for enlightenment.”

In 1992, the Chi Omega Greek Theatre was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It  is used for Panhellenic Council Bid Days, concerts, plays, convocations, commencements, and pep rallies during football season.


 

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.

Posted in Chi Omega, Founders' Day, Fran Favorite, GLO, Greek-letter Organization, Greek-letter Organization History, Mary Love Collins, Sorority History, University of Arkansas | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on The ΧΩ Connection – Founders’ Day and a Greek Theater at the University of Arkansas