Written by Leanna Barcelona
Around this time of year, 120 years ago, the first sororities (womens fraternities as they were known as at the time) were initiated at the University of Illinois. There is some controversy over which organization was the very first, based on charter approvals and initiation dates. In any event, Pi Beta Phi initiated nine charter members in the Zeta chapter at the university of Illinois. Kappa Alpha Theta, whose charter dates October 24, 1895, initiated thirteen members on November 9, 1895. Both of these chapters have formally written histories housed here in our archives.
Amelia Alpiner Stern, a charter member of Pi Beta Phi, is the author of their history. In the paper, she wrote:
Soon after the university opened in the fall of ‘94 a buzz was heard wherever groups of girls gathered and the air became charged with the idea of organizing purely social local groups which could later petition for membership in some national sorority…By the spring of 1895 the two groups had definitely outlined their purposes and one petitioned Pi Beta Phi and the other Kappa Alpha Theta.[1]