I’ve promised a few people that I will get the dissertation on this web-site. It’s just taking a little longer than I anticipated (aka the Becque principle), so here is the abstract to whet your appetite.
AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF FRANCES DESIMONE BECQUE, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Educational Administration and Higher Education, presented on March 21, 2002, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
TITLE: Coeducation and the History of Women’s Fraternities 1867–1902
MAJOR PROFESSOR: William E. Eaton, Ph.D.
The purpose of this study was to trace the historical development of seven women’s fraternities, Pi Beta Phi (I. C. Sorosis), Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Delta Gamma, Alpha Phi, Gamma Phi Beta, and Delta Delta Delta, during the period from 1867 until 1902. Also, the women who were enrolled in the institutions where the women’s fraternity movement grew are profiled as examples of the role membership may have had in their educational and career pursuits.
Women’s fraternities, or sororities as they are sometimes known, became an accepted part of collegiate life in the years examined in this study. The campuses where these organizations took hold were coeducational with the exception of a handful of women’s colleges. The manner in which the women’s fraternity movement developed is outlined as well as the educational institutions at which these women’s fraternities prospered.
By 1902 the institutions that were home to at least five of these women’s fraternities were Syracuse University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, the University of California – Berkeley, Goucher College, Boston University, the University of Nebraska, and Stanford University. DePauw University, Simpson College, Indiana University, the Ohio State University and Cornell University had four of these women’s fraternities on campus by 1902. These coeducational institutions provided a fertile field for women’s fraternities to grow and prosper.
The seven women’s fraternities highlighted in this study met in Boston in 1891. In 1902, they convened in Chicago and formed the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), the umbrella organization for women’s fraternities. The events are highlighted that lead up to the formation of NPC.
Briefly profiled are the accomplishments of some of the women who founded and joined these women’s fraternities in the years between 1867 and 1902. Some of these early women’s fraternity initiates were Carrie Chapman Catt, Florence Bascom, Julia Morgan, Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Ada Comstock. These women were trailblazers, yet little is told of their membership in women’s fraternities.
