Has Fran finally lost it? Why is she using this picture? It looks like a hot mess all the way around. In 2013, taking a candid picture is not at all noteworthy. But back in the summer of 1910 when this photo was taken, it was not the norm. Pictures were carefully posed.
Most of these women are college students. They are attending a women’s fraternity convention. Look at the white hat, the long dresses, the corseted waists, the parasols, and the women rushing to and fro. Can you imagine being dressed like that in the middle of June? Neither can I.
I often think of this photo when someone asks me how rush (now known as recruitment) got its name. In the days before the founding of the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), the organization of 26 women’s fraternities/sororities, and recruiting rules were written down and agreed upon, there was often a mad scramble to extend an invitation to membership as quickly as possible after a new student arrived on campus. There are stories of meeting an incoming coed at the train station and giving her an invitation to membership, especially if she was known to members of the organization. An endorsement from a member, i.e., “My cousin Tillie’s best friend from Oquawka is studying here in the fall. She’d be a great XYZ,” was sometimes all it took to invite a new student to membership in the 1800s. That practice did not last very long, for the women’s organizations on a campus came together and set rules for themselves, even prior the NPC’s creation, but the name “rush” carried on for more than a century. (There is a blog post about the recruitment rules created in 1888 by the three women’s fraternities at the University of Kansas. http://wp.me/p20I1i-Xm )
(c) Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.
