Unfortunately, these things need titles. Quarantine Diversons, GLO History Style is not the greatest title. I loved writing the #WHM2020 profiles in March because I spent much of the day researching and writing and the challenge of doing 31 profiles kept me focused. It’s mid-April and posts have been sparse. There are a few more Founders’ Days this month and I am hoping to at least cover the sorority ones. This post is a little this-a and a little that-a, with an emphasis on the latter. (Extra points for recognizing the Damn Yankees reference)
A Problem to Solve
A man in Providence, Rhode Island, found this while cleaning a parking lot at a restaurant. He hopes we can find the owner. Let’s try! A friend identified it as something Auburn Pi Phis gave out to pref attendees, but the one she has does not have a date on it. Other chapters may have given them out, too. There is a chance that this was owned by someone who went to a pref party at Pi Phi and joined another organization. It’s a small Revere bowl, not a large one, but 1970s was a time for FRILLS. Contact me via Facebook (the Focus on Fraternity History page) if you have anything that might solve this mystery.
Beta Theta Pi’s General Fraternity Archivist and Historian Zac Haines takes viewers on a tour of Beta’s Headquarters in Oxford, Ohio, where it was founded on the campus of Miami University.
A Book to Read
UPS brought this yesterday and I look forward to reading it. It’s available at on-line bookstores near you.
#WHM2020 Posts
If you missed any of the Women’s History Month posts which highlighted 30 sorority women (26 NPC and 4 NPHC members), I encourage you to scroll down the blog and check them out. I love doing these posts because I learn so much. Each group has outstanding women and it is truly a treat to highlight these members.
A few years ago, I was asked to write a history of the Theta Chi chapter at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I was a bit apprehensive about the task. Prior to that I wrote histories of fraternity and sororities at the University of Illinois and having been on campus many times, it was a fun task to learn about the institution’s history chapter by chapter. Aside from a short trip to Cambridge eons ago, I had no tie to MIT. But paid gigs being what they are, I took the challenge. And along the way, I became fascinated with the beginnings of the chapter. I often talk about founder and builders. Members know the founders’ names and few know the builders. Theta Chi – the fraternity at-large – owes much to one man who falls into the builder category.
Theta Chi was founded on April 10, 1856 at Norwich University, in Norwich, Vermont. Two cadets, Frederick Norton Freeman and Arthur Chase, met in Freeman’s room in Norwich’s Old South Barracks. After taking an oath, they declared each other “true and accepted members” of the Society.
Chase became President and Freeman became Secretary. The next evening Edward Bancroft Williston and Lorenzo Potter joined the order. Theta Chi incorporated in 1888, and despite a few unsuccessful forays to other colleges in the early years, decades went by without any attempts at expansion.
It wasn’t until more than 45 years later, on December 13, 1902, that Theta Chi’s Beta chapter at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was installed. That chapter came to be solely because of one man, Park Valentine Perkins, a Theta Chi who had transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Valentine,” as he preferred to be called, wanted to share his Theta Chi bond with some of the students there.
Perkins was one of nine men in his class when he entered Norwich Military Academy at the age of 16. Five of them became Theta Chis. When Perkins left Norwich after a year and enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there were more than a dozen fraternities at MIT. Perkins found a group of men he thought would make good fraternity brothers and sought a charter from Theta Chi. He had the support and assistance of Theta Chi alumni living in the Boston area, E. Wesson Clark and J. Albert Holmes, both of whom later served as Theta Chi National Presidents, and George Prentice Lowell.
The group’s first petition was rejected as was a second petition. Several of the men traveled from Boston to Norwich to make personal appeals. There they presented a third petition, and they were finally successful. Theta Chi was on its way to becoming a full-fledged national fraternity. Would Theta Chi be here today had Perkins had been less persistent?
The Alpha chapter was in existence until 1960 when Norwich disbanded all its fraternities. Thanks to Parks Valentine Perkins, extension became a reality for Theta Chi and the demise of the Alpha chapter, though sad, did not mean the end of Theta Chi.
The Park Valentine Perkins Award is presented to Theta Chis who demonstrate a commitment to expansion either by starting an interest group or by significantly assisting a colony that is (re)installed as a chapter.
For Theta Chi’s 75th Anniversary, a stone monument was dedicated at Norwich, Vermont.
Happy Founders’ Day to Chi Omega! It was founded 125 years ago, on April 5, 1895 at the University of Arkansas. The founding chapter has the designation “Psi.” Ina May Boles, Jean Vincenheller, Jobelle Holcombe, and Alice Simonds, along with Dr. Charles Richardson, are the founders. A Fayetteville dentist, Richardson, a Kappa Sigma, guided the women. Known as “Sis Doc” to generations of Psi Chapter members, he crafted Chi Omega’s first badge out of dental gold. Chi Omega is likely the only NPC organization to have its first badge crafted in this manner.
The Tenth-Eleventh Biennial Convention of Chi Omega was held in the summer of 1920. The 1918 Convention was cancelled due to World War I, hence the double numbered 1920 convention. The locale was the Whittle Springs Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee. Chi Omega turned 25 years old that year and there was a big celebration. Does anyone start a banquet at 9:30 p.m. anymore?
The evening of July first brought the last event of Convention, the banquet. By nine o’clock the lobby of the hotel was filled with girls, almost two hundred, but not until half after the hour were they admitted to the dining room. The tables were arranged in three parallel rows the length of the room while across one end ran the table at which sat the guests of honor.
Appropriate decorations of cardinal and straw graved the tables, while at every place was a menu card and a tiny silver pencil. On the cover of the menu card was the crest of Chi Omega done in gold, inside were blank pages for autographs, also a list of the speakers. The pencils were decorated with our crest also, and were provided with a ribbon and a slide. Between courses the girls used the pencils to good advantage in securing the signatures of Dr. Richardson, Mrs. Collins, and other celebrities.
When the feast was over, the toastmistress, Laura Thornburg of Pi, introduced her speakers cleverly, taking as her theme a temple fair. Beginning with the foundations laid in the early days, pillars, columns, aisles, and arches were added, until each speaker had added her part to the symbol of the ideals of Chi Omega, and we found that the initial letters of the subjects of the speeches formed the acrostic Chi Omega.
As a gift of our love and appreciation for the loyalty and the long service of our retiring editor, Martha Land, the delegate from Gamma, Mildred Hall, presented her with a fitted suitcase. This is a gentle hint that Martha must visit all of the chapters in the near future.
The closing event of the evening was the presentation of the loving cup to Eta Alpha chapter. Mrs. Collins presented it to Lucille Resing in behalf of the Council. Our chapter at Oregon Agricultural College is to be congratulated heartily on winning this cup.
At midnight, the banquet closed with rousing songs and cheers, and with many promises to surely be present at the next Convention in 1922.
Mary Love Collins
“Sis Doc,” Dr. Charles Richardson
At 5 p.m. Central Time…
Please tune in at 5 p.m. (Central Time) as Chi Omega’s Archivist presents a very special program on the founding. I’ll try to post the link on the Focus on Fraternity History Facebook group page.
This week during our “Shelter in Place” order, I began cleaning out my GLO History cabinet. In the way back I found an unopened box with a bookstore’s label on it. I just put it aside while I whittled down the piles and placed things in file folders. This morning I opened the box. In it were 12 issues of The Fraternity Month. It was an eBay auction won in 2006 (the date on the receipt) spending more than I should have. I have no idea why I never opened the package or how it ended up in back of a file box never to be seen for 14 years. I suspect it involved company coming and a million things on my plate at the time. Out of sight, out of mind perhaps.
Banta’s Greek Exchange and The Fraternity Month are some of my favorite magazines to read. Both ended publication in the early 1970s. Tau Kappa Epsilon Leland F. Leland, and his wife Wilma Smith Leland, Alpha Omicron Pi, began the Fraternity Press. They published Fraternity Month from 1933 until 1971. The cover art is vivid and wonderfully done.
A University of Minnesota alumnus, Leland worked for the George Banta Company before striking out on his own.
The October 1933 edition of The Fraternity Month included this introduction:
Fraternity Month and its staff greet you. To tell you what kind of a magazine it is would be to be trite, for you may see for yourselves. We hope you find it all that you may expect of a new, interfraternity publication. Many of you have asked for one which will be read by undergraduates as well as by more mature members. This is the type of magazine we want to produce. Coming with regular frequency, our news will be current and vital.
Our articles will be by persons prominent in their field. We will follow a policy of liberalism. Our articles will not reflect our own opinion for this is your magazine and each of you may direct the thought of it so long as you may direct the thought of it so long as you keep within the bounds of good taste. We welcome your contributions, your suggestions and, about all, your criticisms.
It will be our earnest endeavor to publish all the worthwhile news of all fraternities and all sororities all the time. You may help us by calling our attention to items which you wish to emphasize.
We want timely news, but we are alert to the splendid history and background that Greek-letter organizations have a right to claim. So there will be articles concerning the heritage of fraternities.
We expect our magazine to be read by prominent people who do not wear a badge, and we will feel it a privilege as well as an obligation to interpret the fraternity system to the outside world in a manner fair and honest.
Controversial articles will present both sides of the question. We do not strive to be smart, but to be intelligent with enough levity to be appealing to a public whose tastes are varied. Our magazine is, first of all, a fraternal and educational journal and we expect to keep it so. It is published without profit by the Fraternity Press in a desire to be of real service to the fraternity system.
I think this add also had “Is your central office closed? on it.
Plan B and Plan C and even Plan D are a part of all our lives right now. Sheltering in place is offering us new opportunities. And I will leave it at that.
My dear friend Lyn Harris, Chi Omega’s Archivist, had plans for a wonderful way to celebrate Chi Omega’s 125th anniversary. It was to have taken place live from the Chi Omega Greek Theater at the University of Arkansas, Chi Omega’s founding home. Alas, Plan B had to be enacted and it was taped in a studio. But it will air at the scheduled time. I invite all of you to join in on the fun. Lyn is a fabulous storyteller. We can help our Chi Omega friends celebrate, even if we wear different badges. After all, who understands us better than each other?
***
Congratulations to Helen Lahrman, who won the AFLV West 2020 Outstanding Fraternity/Sorority Professional award. She’s a Pi Phi.
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I thank those of you who read my profiles of 30 #NotableSororityWomen for Women’s History Month. Finding and profiling these women is sometimes challenging. I get caught up in their lives, so I am glad to hear that others appreciate them.
I’ve been spending my sheltering in place time trying to get 30+ years of collecting and writing about GLO History into some semblance of order. I’ve been featuring pictures of some of my treasures on the @GLOHistory instagram page. I’m also trying to post positive GLO press on the Focus on Fraternity History facebook group. And I am hoping to get to some of the posts I’ve wanted to write since I started this blog.
Be safe, stay safe and please keep advocating for fraternity and sorority life. I sense some challenges in our future.
Belle Cooledge, the first female mayor of an American city with more than 30,000 residents, was a member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood. A Sacramento park, branch library, and community center are named for her.
Cooledge was born on July 29, 1884, and moved to Sacramento, California, in the late 1800s. She graduated from Sacramento High School in 1900. Cooledge attended University of California – Berkeley, where she earned a Bachelor’s in chemistry. She also earned a Master’s at Berkeley and then she did additional graduate work at Columbia University in New York City.
She taught at Ione and Lodi High Schools. Her starting salary was $25 a week. In 1912, she was hired to teach at Sacramento High School. When she helped found the Sacramento Junior College (now known as Sacramento City College) in 1916, she was appointed Dean of Students. The college was originally housed in the upper floors of Sacramento High School.
Cooledge served as in the Army Nurse Corps during World War I, and returned to Sacramento Junior College when it reopened in 1920. She worked at the college until her retirement in 1947. During her tenure she served as a math instructor, college dean, dean of women and Vice President.
After her retirement, her students urged her to go into politics and helped her campaign for a seat on the city council. She was appointed mayor from 1948 to 1949. She then served another term on the city council.
She was known as “Auntie Belle.” In 1953, she was named Sacramento Woman of the Year. Cooledge was a member of Zonta International, American Association of University Women, Daughters of the American Revolution, P.E.O. Sisterhood, Order of the Eastern Star, and Delta Kappa Gamma.
After her death on November 9, 1955, the Sacramento chapter of Zonta International sent complete electric train set to the children of the Weimar Joint Sanatorium in her memory. The college she served established the SCC Belle Cooledge Memorial Scholarship.
Juvenilia Porter, sometimes known by the pen name of Olive Porter, was a member of Alpha Chi Omega at Allegheny College. I’ve seen her first name spelled Juvenelia and she also went by J. Olive Porter. She was born on January 15, 1869. Her mother died when Porter was a teenager. At 16, she went to New York City where she may have had relatives. However, an Allegheny yearbook lists her as an active member of the chapter in 1898. That means she would have been almost 30 as a collegian. It does not appear that she ever graduated.
The Delta chapter of Alpha Chi Omega, 1898
At some point, Porter went to New York City and made her acting debut under Charles Prohman. Two uncles were actors and her father managed the Opera House in Meadville, so she may have had contacts in the city. After several years as an actress in stock productions, she began working as a stenographer on Wall Street. Using her experience, she wrote a play whose original title was The Son of His Father. When it debuted on Broadway in 1909, it was The Ringmaster.
The Sun (NY), July 11, 1909
In 1913 she went to Europe to study languages and drama. A 1914 volume of The Lyre of Alpha Chi Omega reported that she was “spending a year in Paris,” and she “recently collaborated on a play produced in that city.” She was in Paris during the Battle of the Marne and she assisted in the war effort with the French Red Cross. Her ability to write French shorthand and her typing skills were much needed assets.
She was at the American Embassy in Paris working for the Information Division until she returned home in the summer of 1920. Porter died at the French Hospital in New York City on May 2, 1922. The casket at her funeral had upon it an American flag as well as a French one.
In 1975, the musical Chicago debuted on Broadway. It was overshadowed that year by A Chorus Line. In 1996, a revival of Chicago opened. The third time was a charm. It garnered six Tony Awards and it is the longest-running musical revival. The story upon which the musical is based first hit Broadway at the very end of 1926. It was written by Maurine Dallas Watkins, an initiate of the Butler University chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta.
Maurine Dallas Watkins
Watkins was born in Kentucky and she graduated from high school in Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 1914. She attended Hamilton College in Kentucky and Transylvania University before enrolling at Butler University in Indiana as a senior. She became a member of the Gamma chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta. The November 1918 issue of the organization’s Kappa Alpha Theta reported:
We were all registered but had not attended all of our classes when the first ‘flu’ ban was called, closing the college for all non-military students. Now after four weeks of vacation, revised programs, registration, another ‘flu’ ban, ‘flu’ masks, and peace celebrations, we are hoping to get acquainted with our books before ‘exams’ come. . . . We have had so few fraternity meetings that little has been done, but we can count ourselves most fortunate to introduce the following pledge: Maurine Watkins, a senior who come to us from Transylvania.
Her dramatic abilities must have become evident to the chapter. At a joint chapter and alumnae meeting on February 15, 1919, the freshmen:
gave their stunt for the alumnae. It made us more proud of our To-Be-Thetas than ever. Maurine Watkins, a senior, pledged in September, wrote the stunt, which told of the trials of a love sick young man in selecting a valentine for his lady. The maid in the shop brought out valentines galore. Girls with Kappa, Pi Phi, Tri Delt, Delta Gamma and various other kinds of hearts, but he was hard to please, and it was only when the girl with a Theta heart appeared that he was completely satisfied. There was a great deal of dancing and singing, which, with the artistic costumes of the valentines, made it one of the best stunts ever given by a group of our pledges.
After graduation she headed to Cambridge, Massachusetts where she enrolled in a graduate program at Radcliffe College. She ended up in George Pierce Baker’s playwriting workshop at Harvard University but she returned to Indiana without finishing a degree. She was teaching public speaking in the Shelbyville, Indiana, high school in the fall of 1921, according to the Kappa Alpha Theta. In 1923, she was an assistant manager overseeing Standard Oil of Indiana’s outdoor advertising.
Watkins was hired by the Chicago Tribune in February 1924 to cover crime with a feminine touch. The pay was $50 a week. She worked at the job for less than a year, but her by-line was often on the front page. Two of the cases she covered involved women who were accused of murdering men, Belva Gaertner and Beulah Sheriff Annan.
After she left the Tribune, she headed to New Haven, Connecticut. George Pierce Baker was now at Yale helping to set up the Yale Drama School. She again enrolled in his class and wrote a play thinly fictionalizing the murders upon which she reported. Beulah Annan became “Roxie Hart”and Belva Gaertner became “Velma Kelly.”
The play opened on Broadway on December 30, 1926 and had 172 performances. It toured for two years. A silent version of it was filmed shortly afterwards. In the 1940s, Ginger Rogers starred as Roxie Hart in a film by the same name.
On January 10, 1928, the Kappa Alpha Thetas gave a reception and dinner in Watkin’s honor at the chapter house. Watkins was identified as living in Indianapolis at this point, in a newspaper account of the event, but she soon headed west to work as a screenwriter in Hollywood. She invested wisely and at the end of her life, she was a philanthropist.
For years she turned down offers to buy the rights to Chicago. Bob Fosse was interested in making it a musical, but Watkins would not relent. After her death on August 12, 1964, her estate finally sold the rights. John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote the score. The musical was made into a movie and it won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2002.
Watkins left bequests to several institutions to establish awards focusing on her love of classical studies and creative writing. Students who study Latin and Greek are eligible to compete for Maurine Dallas Watkins Prizes through Eta Sigma Phi, a collegiate honor society. She established the Ernest Woodruff Delcamp Essay Awards at Transylvania University to honor a former chairman of the Department of English. Scholarships were set up for students at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in Greece and the American Academy in Rome, Italy. She also gave donations to the classical studies programs at Harvard University and the University of Iowa. She was also a major donor to the McGarvey Fellowship Program at Abilene Christian University.
1933 passport photo (courtesy of Yale College of American Literature)
Maggie Lena Walker lived her life in Richmond, Virginia. She was born in 1864. She joined the local council of the Independent Order of St. Luke when she was 14. It was a fraternal burial society that helped those who were ill and the elderly. She took on more and more responsibility with the Order and became Right Worthy Grand Secretary in 1899, a position she held until her death in 1934.
From
1883 until 1886, she taught grade school. She resigned her position when she
married Armstead Walker Jr., a brick contractor. They had two sons.
Walker became the publisher of The St. Luke Herald in 1902. Shortly thereafter, she became the first African American woman to charter a United States bank when she opened the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank. Several women were on the bank’s board. Walker became chairman of the board of directors of Consolidated Bank and Trust Company when her bank merged with two other Richmond banks.
In 1904, the Walkers bought a home at 1101⁄2 East Leigh Street in the Jackson Ward district of Richmond. Her husband was killed in an accident in 1915. The St. Luke Building contained her office and the offices for the Order of St. Luke.
Virginia
Union University awarded Walker an honorary Master’s degree in 1925. A high
school next to the University campus was named the Maggie L. Walker High
School. In 2001, it became a regional school, Maggie L. Walker Governor’s
School for Government and International Studies.
Walker was an Honorary member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. Today the Maggie L. Walker Historic Site is run by the National Park Service. The visitor’s center tells the story of her life and the Jackson Ward community. Later in her life, she was confined to a wheelchair and she had an elevator installed in her home. There is a virtual tour of the house.
In 2000, Walker was among the first
group honored as Viriginia Women in History. A year later she was inducted into
the Junior Achivement U.S. Business Hall of Fame.
A 10-foot bronze statue of Walker was unveiled on July 15, 2017. Designed by Antonio Tobias Mendez, it depicts a 45-year-old Walker holding a checkbook with her glasses pinned to her lapel. It is located at the gateway to the Jackson Ward.
The
sorority established a partnership with the National Park Service. It was
formalized with signing ceremony at the National Museum of African American
History and Culture on January 16, 2020, the day Zeta Phi Beta turned 100.
Gladys Wilkinson was born in Nebraska on May 30, 1894. She travelled abroad in 1910 and 1913. As a student at the University of Nebraska, she was a charter member of the Pi chapter of Gamma Phi Beta when it was installed on June 22, 1915. She was also active in the University Players, the Dramatic Club, and Delta Omicron honorary music sorority. She did post graduate work at Smith College and Indiana University.
In 1920 she attended the 8th Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance which met in Geneva, Switzerland. Later that year, she married Paul William Lawrence on Tuesday, November 2, 1920, Election Day. She wore a white velvet and satin bridal gown trimmed in old lace with a solid cord of Roman river pearls. The veil was a family heirloom made of Carackmacross lace and her gloves were of old Venetian lace.
Early in their marriage, the couple lived in several Iowa cities. Their only child, Paul, Jr., was born in Des Moines two years to the day after his parents’ marriage. From 1923 until 1925, she was installation officer for Delta Omicron. She would serve the organization as manager of two conventions and as editor of its magazine for eight years.
Lawrence
attended Gamma Phi’s 50th anniversary convention which was held in
June of 1924. She was living in Burlington, Iowa, at the time. The Lawrences
moved to Los Angeles in January of 1925. They founded a company, Lawrence Steel
Doors, which is still in business today.
She became a member of the Board of the City Employees Retirement System in 1937 and was its only female member. Lawrence took an active part in the civic and philanthropic affairs of Los Angeles. A founder of the National Charity League, she created its Ticktocker group for mothers and daughters. She began a civic beautification movement for the Woman’s Service Auxiliary of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. Lawrence was president of the Los Angeles branch of the National Flower and Fruit Guild, among many other volunteer projects.
An article in the February 1939 Crescent of Gamma Phi Beta called her
the “busiest Gamma Phi in Los Angeles.” Her friends said she possessed “a driving force that
keeps her busy and competent in a dozen fields of endeavor. Coupled with this
energy is a great enthusiasm and a loyalty to her friends and to Gamma Phi.” She
did a stint as President of the LA Alumnae chapter and she was the force behind
the group forming the Assistance League’s Motor Corps.
Lawrence was the first President of the Los Angeles Nebraska Alumnae, which during her tenure had 2,000 members. She was a member of the Smith College Alumnae in Los Angeles and the American Association of University Women.
When her husband became ill before his death in 1951, she and her son took over the management of the family business. Starting in 1947, when she was on the first Pan Am commercial international flight, she took more than 37 trips around the world primarily for business reasons.
In a 1958 article, she said, “Gamma Phi has always been very dear to me and has made my life much lovelier in every way.” Lawrence died on March 11, 1987 and is interred in Forest Lawn Cemetery.
There are many posts on this blog. Use the search button to find the posts about your organization.
Welcome!
Welcome! Chances are good you found this blog by searching for something about fraternities or sororities.
I was the last person anyone would have suspected of joining a sorority in college. I am sure I would have agreed with them, too.
When I made my way to Syracuse University, I saw the houses with the Greek letters that edged Walnut Park, and wished I could tour them. My roommate suggested I sign up for rush (as it was then called, today it’s known as recruitment) and go through the house tour round and then drop out of rush. It sounded like a plan. I didn’t realize that I would end up feeling at home at one of the chapters. And that I would become a member.
In this blog I will share the history of GLOs and other topics. I wrote a dissertation on “Coeducation and the History of Women’s Fraternities 1867-1902.″ It chronicles the growth of the system and the birth of the National Panhellenic Conference.
My Master’s thesis details the history of the fraternity system at Southern Illinois University Carbondale from 1948-1960. The dates are significant ones and the thesis is available on the top menu.
I have done research at the Student Life Archives and have written several histories of University of Illinois fraternity chapters for the Society for the Preservation of Greek Housing.
