On May 1, 1848, Phi Gamma Delta was founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. The founders, the Immortal Six, are John Templeton McCarty, Samuel Beatty Wilson, James Elliott, Daniel Webster Crofts, Ellis Bailey Gregg and Naaman Fletcher. The Beta Chapter was established the same year at Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania. The chapters became one when the colleges merged to form Washington and Jefferson College in 1865.
This full size portrait of President Coolidge was painted by Ercole Cartotto. Although it is now at the Phi Gamma Delta’s Headquarters, it was originally commissioned by the Xi Graduate Chapter for the Phi Gamma Delta Club in New York City. Ercole Cartotto’s painting was dedicated on February 20, 1929, in the Club library. It is “life size.”
And although this is Fiji Founders’ Day, this post is really about the President and his lovely wife. In the summer of 1920, an Amherst Fiji won the Vice Presidential spot on the Republican ticket. At the time of the nomination, Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge was at Amherst attending his 25th college reunion and the 99th anniversary of the college. A reception at the chapter house was arranged with his wife Grace Goodhue Coolidge, a Pi Beta Phi alumna, helping the chapter quickly plan the event. More than 1,500 people attended the hastily planned reception.
Grace Coolidge in her official First Lady portrait given to the Nation in 1924 by Pi Beta Phi. Her golden arrow is worn over her heart.
Calvin Coolidge became President after the death of Warren G. Harding on August 2, 1923. The Coolidges were planning to attend Phi Gamma Delta’s 75th anniversary celebration in Pittsburgh in September 1923. Unfortunately, they had to cancel those plans. Later, the fraternity presented a founder’s badge to the President. On that occasion, President Coolidge said, “I am very glad to have this badge. My wife wears mine most of the time.”
On November 17, 1924, the Coolidges’ son, John, a student at Amherst College, became a member of his father’s chapter. On the following Founders’ Day, May 1, 1925, Fiji Sires and Sons was organized. Its purpose is to “impress upon all fathers and sons, who are members of the fraternity, and in time upon their sons, a realization of the noble trinity of principles of the fraternity, with the hope that they may outrun the fervor of youth.”
