Sorority whistles may have been the first social media used by National Panhellenic Conference organizations. Imagine being on a campus and hearing your organization’s whistle. What a comforting sound it must have been, knowing sisters were close at hand.
Sorority whistles first appeared in the 1880s and by the 1910s, many of the National Panhellenic Conference organizations seem to have adopted a whistle.
Alpha Chi Omega’s whistle was “officially recorded for the first time on May 24, 1887, when a motion was passed that it be inserted in the Constitution.”
The Pi Beta Phi whistle was adopted by the organization’s 1890 Convention.
Pi Beta Phi Whistle
Chi Omega’s whistle was adopted at its 1904 convention.
In 1907, at Sigma Sigma Sigma’s fourth convention, the whistle “now used by Gamma and Epsilon” was chosen to be the official whistle.
Zeta Tau Alpha’s whistle is credited to its Kappa Chapter at the University of Texas. It was accepted by the 1908 convention. (Dr. May Agness Hopkins, a member of the Kappa Chapter was a member of Grand Chapter at that convention. You can read more about Dr. Hopkins at http://wp.me/p20I1i-pj).
A poem in the November 1920 Trident alluded to the existence of a Tri Delta Whistle.
HE WHISTLED THE TRI DELTA WHISTLE It was during the Tri Delt Convention, Convened at the Statler Hotel, When a certain young swain whom I mention, Saw a girl whom he liked very well. He tried to attract her attention; He rushed through the lobby pell mell. But the girl hurried on unobserving One girl in a chattering crowd So he whistled the Tri Delta whistle; He whistled it clearly and loud, And a hundred Tri Delts listened and heard, And stopped in their progress deterred – From every cranny and nook in the hall, They whistled their answers to Tri Delta’s call – When he whistled the Tri Delta whistle.Indeed, the Centennial History of Delta Delta Delta noted, “There is little on the record about a whistle, but apparently it was used for a time. One whistle was similar to the call, using 1, 3, 5, 8 of the scale ascending. The answering whistle from a second person or group was the same but descending. The Trireme in 1915 reported that the convention adopted a recommendation ‘that the scale Delta Delta Delta whistle be used to the exclusion of all others.'”
In an article in the November 1944 Anchora, Charlotte Cline McConnehea, an alumna of Ohio’s Miami University Delta Gamma chapter, described the year she and her husband had working at a forest lookout tower in the Pacific northwest. Of the couple’s bird dog, Nimrod, she wrote “You should see him come a running to the Delta Gamma whistle!”
Other references to the whistle were found in the songbooks belonging to Gamma Phi Beta, Phi Mu and Kappa Alpha Theta.
The Whistle Song of Gamma Phi Beta
Phi Mu Whistle Song
The Whistle, Kappa Alpha Theta
This one page labelled “Fraternity Whistles” illustrates the whistles of both men’s and women’s organizations. My thanks to Chi Omega Archivist Lyn Harris for sharing it with me.
Assorted fraternity whistles (My thanks to Lyn Harris, Chi Omega’s Archivist for sharing this with me.)
I welcome the opportunity to make this post more complete. Please feel free to let me know about the whistles I am missing. These were just the resources I had at hand.
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© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2012. All Rights Reserved.
