I collect Baird’s Manual of American College Fraternities. I use them for research and to just randomly open a page and read. William Raimond Baird published the first edition in 1879. After Baird’s death, others took on the job of editing Baird’s Manual. The twentieth and last edition, edited by Jack Anson, Phi Kappa Tau, and Robert F. Marchesani, Jr., Phi Kappa Psi, was published in 1991. It’s a very large book (8.5 x 11 x 2.5) and if another edition were to be published, it would likely have to be twice the size, what with the changes that have taken place in ensuing three decades. Moreover, it would be outdated before it was even published.
Carroll Lurding, Delta Upsilon, made his hobby the study of fraternities and sororities. For decades, he painstakingly researched the local groups which became national organizations. He kept track of the changes that have happened in the fraternity and sorority world since the last edition of Baird’s was published in 1991. Lurding combed fraternities and sororities publications including histories, pledge manuals, magazines, and websites as well as available yearbooks. He also consulted the publications available at the University of Illinois Library’s Student Life & Culture Archives, Indiana University’s Lurding Collection of Fraternity Material at the Lilly Library and the New York Public Library’s Baird Collection. He expanded on information offered, including the names of local organizations which became chapters of fraternities and sororities.
The Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities picks up where that 20th Edition of Baird’s Manual ended. And it includes much more! I hope you will take a look at it and use it regularly.
I offer my gratitude to Ellen Swain and the Student Life & Culture Archives at the University of Illinois Library for finding a way to house the Almanac and to the Society for the Preservation of Greek Housing for providing a grant to keep the information updated.
Please help me publicize this important resource.
