History of North American College Fraternities and Sororities - Latin Societies

Latin Societies

From the 1770s, literary societies existed at virtually all the colleges and universities in America. They were student fraternal organizations that promoted scholarship, rhetoric, and ethical conduct.

The Latin Societies were formal organizations, often with large assembly rooms. These organizations typically existed in pairs (two competing organizations on a campus), and took roughly half the students as members. At some colleges, students would even be assigned to a society by lot. The literary exercises of these societies usually consisted of a debate, and the meetings were open to the public. In addition to a debate, members could be assigned original poems, essays, fiction, to both compose and deliver. Each society had distinctive meetings, with more or less political, social, or religious discussion.

These organizations also often adopted mottoes in Greek or Latin, and some had Greek letter names, such as Phi Kappa society at the University of Georgia.

These organizations figure prominently in the development of fraternities and sororities because many early fraternities were considered simply 'private' versions of the 'open' Latin societies, and the format of the meetings was derived from the Latin societies exercises.

The Latin Societies thrived until the American Civil War. It is suggested that the later college fraternities undermined them. There were attempts to restore some of these organizations in the 1870s. A few do survive, either in the original society, or with one or more breaks in their history, at the University of Georgia, Yale.