Phi Sigma Sigma’s first chapter was chartered at New York’s Hunter College on November 26, 1913. Its ten founders are Lillian Gordon Alpern, Josephine Ellison Breakstone, Fay Chertkoff, Estelle Melnick Cole, Jeanette Lipka Furst, Ethel Gordon Kraus, Shirley Cohen Laufer, Claire Wunder McArdle, Rose Sher Seidman and Gwen Zaliels Snyder.
The organization’s original name was 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 created when a friend of one of the founders expressed interest in the organization. A third chapter was chartered at New York University.
Phi Sigma Sigma’s Theta Chapter, chartered in 1923 at the University of Illinois, has among its alumnae Irna Phillips, considered the “mother of modern soap opera” and Tatyana McFadden, Paralympic Gold Medalist. Among the soap operas Phillips (pictured below) created are Guiding Light, As the World Turns, Days of Our Lives and Another World.
