“American College Fraternities, unique among the educational system of the world, had their genesis almost coincident with the founding of the American Republic itself and in their growth have kept pace with the robust nation and with Canada.
Only five months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Phi Beta Kappa was founded by five students at the College of William and Mary in ancient Williamsburg, VA, on the night of December 5, 1776.
FIRST GREEK LETTER SOCIETY
It is generally believed that this first Greek-letter society grew out of an antecedent organization know as the “Flat Hat Club,” which had existed at William and Mary since about 1750. The Phi Beta Kappa of the late Eighteenth Century had all the earmarks of our present-day social fraternities: the charm and mystery of the secrecy, a ritual, oath of fidelity, a grip, a motto, a badge for external display, high ideals of morality, scholastic achievement and fellowship. The ancient society soon determined to extend its values to other institutions and within eleven year had established chapters at Yale, Harvard and Dartmouth.
Because of increased military activity in Virginia during the Revolutionary War, the parent chapter of Phi Beta Kappa became dormant in 1781 and the fraternity did not expand further for many years. In 1831, influenced by a nation-wide agitation against secret societies, the Harvard chapter voluntarily disclosed it secrets; thenceforth the entire organization became an honorary society in which membership was conferred solely for distinguished scholarship. Following this change of policy, Phi Beta Kappa emphasized the honorary nature of its membership and no longer considered itself in competition with social fraternities.
Phi Beta Kappa today is more widely distributed than any other Greek-letter society and remains purely honorary in character. Yet the fraternities of 1776-1831 were the progenitor of our whole species of college fraternities and its numerous offspring bear all of its essential features.
UNION COLLEGE – “Mother of Fraternities”
The Kappa Alpha Society, Popularly known as Northern K.A., was organized at Union College, Schenectady, NY, in the autumn of 1825 and is the oldest of the existing social fraternities. Like many others that have followed, its formation was due either to imitation of or opposition to an antecedent society. It was patterned after Phi Beta Kappa, which had placed a chapter at Union College eight years before. The fraternity idea caught the fancy of the Union men of that generation and two years later-in 1827-Sigma Phi and Delta Phi both appeared on the scene. These three pioneer fraternities, know as the “Union Triad,” where the pattern for the American fraternity system.
Three other fraternities where later established at Union College: Psi Upsilon in 1833, Chi Psi in 1841, and Theta Delta Chi in 1847. Union properly bears the title of “Mother of Fraternities.”
Sigma Psi was the first of the “Union Triad” to expand. It placed a chapter at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, in 1831. A rival fraternity, Alpha Delta Phi, sprang up on the Hamilton campus in 1832. Kappa Alpha and Delta Phi first expanded to Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., in 1833 and 1834, respectively. Almost immediately, a coalition of anti-secret groups, the progenitor of Delta Upsilon, formed to oppose them.
THE “MIAMI TRIAD”
What of fraternity expansion westward? In 1833, one year after its founding at Hamilton College, Alpha Delta Phi established its second chapter at Miami University, Oxford, OH. Displease with Alpha Delta Phi’s control of campus leadership at Miami, another group of students banded together in 1839 to establish Beta Theta Pi, the first fraternity to be founded west of the Alleghenies.
Phi Delta Theta, founded at Miami, owes its origins to a student prank, the famous “snow rebellion,” which started as a frolic and ended in open defiance of the college authorities. The students packed enormous quantities of snow in the entrances to the college buildings, thus preventing the faculty from entering the classrooms for two days. Expulsion of more than twenty students followed, including all the Alpha Delta Phi but one and all of the Beta Theta Psi but two. Thus both fraternities became inactive at Miami and remained so until 1852. Meantime, Phi Delta Theta was organized in December 1848, and gained a foothold before her rivals could reestablish themselves.
Miami University is likewise the birthplace of a third general fraternity, Sigma Chi. Six men who have been members of Delta Kappa Epsilon, which has entered Miami in 1852, founded it in 1855, after it’s founding at Yale in 1844. These six students had disagreed with their chapter over the election of a representative in a college oratorical contest and walked out to start a fraternity of their own.
Thus Beat Theta Pi, Phi Delta Theta, and Sigma Chi form the “Miami Triad.”