Alpha Delta Pi was founded as the Adelphean Society on May 15, 1851 at Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia. In 1905, the sisterhood changed its name to Alpha Delta Phi and installed its second chapter at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A third chapter was founded at Mary Baldwin Seminary, in Staunton, Virginia, in 1906.
The Delta chapter at the University of Texas was installed on June 6, 1906. It is the oldest, continuous Alpha Delta Pi chapter and it was the sixth sorority chapter on campus. Alpha chapter member Jewel Davis (Scarborough) went to the University of Texas as a graduate student with the intention of creating a chapter there. She composed the first whistle and served as National President from 1913-17. Dean Helen Marr Kirby was an Adelphean and proved herself as a valuable friend of the chapter.
During 1908-09, the Delta chapter lived in an eight-room house with a professor and his wife as chaperons and the chapter owned most of the furniture in the house. Mabelle Fuller (Sperry), who served three terms as National President from 1921-27, was an early initiate of the chapter. During 1911-12, the non-sorority women were “the cause of considerable disturbance throughout the year, finally petitioning the state legislature to put the Greek letter societies out of school. The move was unsuccessful and was voted down at a special session of the legislature,” according to the 1930 History of Alpha Delta Pi.
Alpha Delta Phi joined the National Panhellenic Conference in 1909. The Sigma chapter at the University of Illinois was chartered in 1912. It followed the installation of the Illinois chapter of Alpha Delta Phi, a men’s fraternity founded in 1832, whose chapters were primarily in the northeast. The women made their organization aware of this duplication of name and the problems that surfaced because of it. In 1913, the convention body voted to change the name to Alpha Delta Pi.
The Alpha Delta Pi Memorial Fountain is located in the center of Wesleyan College’s quadrangle; it was a gift to celebrate the college’s centennial in 1936. Made of Georgia marble, the Alpha Delta Pi coat-of-arms is engraved on the large slanting block at center. The names of the Alpha Delta Pi founders are engraved on the stairs leading up to the fountain. Other elements of the fountain were added on other commemorations including two lions, the mascot of Alpha Delta Pi, given in 2011 to celebrate the College’s 175th anniversary.
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