Dartmouth College Greek Organizations - History

History

Social fraternities at Dartmouth College grew out of a tradition of student literary societies that began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The first such society at Dartmouth, the Social Friends, was formed in 1783. A rival organization, called the United Fraternity, was founded in 1786. A chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was established at Dartmouth in 1787, and counted among its members Daniel Webster, class of 1801. These organizations were, in large part, the only social life available to students at the College. The organizations hosted debates on a variety of topics not encountered in the curriculum of the day, and amassed large libraries of titles not found in the official College library. Both the Social Friends and the United Fraternity created libraries in Dartmouth Hall, and met in a room called Society Hall inside Dartmouth Hall. In 1815, the College decided to intervene in the hotly contested recruitment battle between the Social Friends and the United Fraternity by restricting each society to recruit only from separate halves of the new student class. In 1825, the College began simply assigning new students to one society or the other. Interest in the literary societies declined in the 1830s and 1840s. The College library and instructional curriculum had expanded to include much of what the literary societies had supported, and new Greek letter societies began to appear on campus.

In 1841, two factions of the United Fraternity split off from the literary society. One of the new societies called itself Omega Phi and on May 10, 1842, obtained a charter as the Zeta chapter of Psi Upsilon. The other faction to split from the United Fraternity organized itself on July 13, 1842, as Kappa Kappa Kappa, a local fraternity. More Greek organizations were founded, and by 1855, 64% of students, mostly upperclassmen, were members of the Greek letter societies on campus. Initially, the original Greek letter societies would not extend invitations of membership to first year students. Two separate Greek letter organizations were created exclusively for freshmen: Kappa Sigma Epsilon and Delta Kappa. These societies would dissolve in 1883, when the fraternities of the upper classes began to pledge freshmen. A chapter of Phi Beta Kappa survived at Dartmouth, but by the 1830s had established its role as a strictly literary society by dropping requirements of secrecy for membership and activities. The new, social Greek organizations distinguished themselves from Phi Beta Kappa and the previous literary societies in several ways. The new fraternities were self-selective and exclusive. Each organization developed its own secret rituals and procedures. Most of the societies began to invest in creating their own meeting halls, either upstairs rooms in buildings on Main Street, or free-standing structures near campus. There were 11 active Greek organizations at Dartmouth College in 1900.