Phi Sigma Sigma was founded at Hunter College on November 26, 1913 by ten young women. The organization was originally called Phi Sigma Omega, but it was discovered that the name was already in use. Five years transpired before a second chapter was installed. In 1918, the Beta Chapter at Tufts University was chartered. It came about because a friend of one of the founders expressed interest in the organization. A third chapter was soon founded at New York University.
On Sunday, June 26, 1960, Jennie Grossinger was installed as Phi Sigma Sigma’s first National Patroness at an event at the new chapter house of the University of Maryland chapter. She was well known personality and mastermind in the running of the Grossinger’s resort complex in the Catskills Mountains of upstate New York. (Think of Kellerman’s in Dirty Dancing or the one Madge Maisel stayed at with her family in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.) An immigrant who came to America as a child and started working full time when she was just a young teen, Grossinger was a well-known fixture in the hospitality industry.
Grand Archon Veachey R. Bloom, introduced Grossinger by saying, “She is a national figure, who is loved and respected by men and women of all races and religions. She has been honored by many organizations.”
In 1958, she became a Fellow of Brandeis University and a year later was awarded an honorary doctorate from Wilberforce University.
In an obituary in The New York Times, it was said, “For more than half a century, Mrs, Grossinger and her family worked to bring the little farm her father bought in 1914 to the rank of flagship of the fleet of landlocked luxury liners anchored in the Catskills 100 miles northwest of New York City, and she ruled, with regal dignity, a 1,300‐acre domain larger than Princess Grace’s Monaco.”
Grossinger’s in the 1950s
Jennie Grossinger died in 1972 at the age of 80. Grossinger’s was closed and sold in 1986.
