To celebrate Women’s History Month, I wrote this post about some of the early NPC delegates. It was published in the March 2013 Alumnae Panhellenics Newsletter.
The National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) met for the first time on May 24, 1902 in Chicago, Illinois. There were seven organizations represented. The women who attended the first meeting were mainly from the Chicago area, some of them alumnae from the chapters at Northwestern University. Pi Beta Phi’s Grand President Elizabeth Gamble traveled the farthest; she lived in Detroit.
When NPC met for the tenth time in November 1911, there were 16 organizations represented. The women who attended these ten meetings were notable in so many respects. Many were professional women, holding down a job in addition to their sorority commitments. It wasn’t easy to juggle a family and career in the early 1900s. Societal convention often deemed it necessary for college-educated women to choose either a career or marriage and a family.
Among the women who attended the 1902 meeting was Delta Delta Delta’s Grand Treasurer Ivy Kellerman (Reed, Ph.D.), then a doctoral student at the University of Chicago. A Phi Beta Kappa, she would become a linguist, lawyer, wife and mother who was an ardent proponent of the international language Esperanto. Kellerman’s Tri Delta sister Amy Olgen (Parmelee) first served as delegate in 1904; she continued to serve during her term as Grand President. Also a Phi Beta Kappa, she was a teacher prior to her marriage. She chaired the 1905 and 1915 meetings.
Delta Gamma’s delegate to the 1902 meeting, Nina Foster Howard, wrote for her family’s publication, Farm, Field and Fireside. In 1905, she and a friend, “two prominent society women,” as a newspaper called them, started a violet farm in Glencoe, Illinois.
Minnie Ruth Terry was Alpha Phi’s delegate from 1902-04. A Phi Beta Kappa at Northwestern, she studied in Europe after graduation and taught French.
E. Jean Nelson-Penfield represented Kappa Kappa Gamma at the 1904 meeting. She was a lawyer, law professor, ardent suffragist and an organizer of the League of Women Voters.
In 1908, L. Pearle Green first attended as Kappa Alpha Theta’s delegate when she was a reference librarian at Stanford University. She resigned that position a year or so later in order to serve Theta. She was its Grand Secretary from 1909-39 and magazine editor from 1911-49. In 1909 she chaired the meeting and did so again 40 years later in 1949.
Pi Beta Phi Anna Lytle (Tannahill Brannon) served as Chairman of the 1908 meeting. She taught at Agnes Scott College and later became Dean of Women at Lewiston State Normal School and Beloit College.
Gamma Phi Beta delegate Lillian Thompson attended the first six NPC meetings. A high school teacher, she was Chairman of the 1913 meeting and served as Gamma Phi Beta’s NPC delegate for 34 years.
Chi Omega Founder Jobelle Holcomb was her organization’s delegate several times beginning in 1906. An English professor at the University of Arkansas, she chaired the 1907 meeting. Fellow Chi Omega Mary Love Collins served as delegate for the first time in 1909. A lawyer and Phi Beta Kappa, she served as Chairman of the 1919 meeting.
May L. Keller, Ph.D. served as Pi Beta Phi’s delegate at six meetings; her first was in 1909. In 1905 she was awarded a doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. After returning home, she taught at Wells College and her alma mater, Goucher College, until she became Dean of Women at Westhampton College, the coordinate of the University of Richmond. Known as the “Iron Dean,” she served in that capacity from 1914-46.
May Lansfield Keller, Ph.D.
Zeta Tau Alpha Dr. May Agness Hopkins attended her first NPC meeting in 1909 while she was in medical school at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. A practicing pediatrician, she served as Chairman at the 1926 meeting.
Dr. May Agness Hopkins, Zeta Tau Alpha
NPC women have been juggling careers, families, civic and sorority obligations since the very first NPC meeting. These women are just a snapshot of the women who have served as NPC delegates.
To read more about Dr. May Agness Hopkins visit http://wp.me/p20I1i-pj
To read more about May Lansfield Keller, Ph.D. http://wp.me/p20I1i-nN
To read the Alumnae Panhellenic newsletter, visit https://www.npcwomen.org/resources/pdf/APH%20Connections%20March%2013.pdf
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.
