Bound By a Mighty Vow: Sisterhood and Women's Fraternities, 1870-1920

2 The Most Socially Eligible: “At Home” with the Second Generation of Fraternity Women

The Most Socially Eligible “At Home” with the Second Generation of Fraternity Women The dire predictions regarding the health of women who attended college proved groundless, and in the 1880s, a larger number of schools opened their doors to female students. According to historian of women’s education Mabel Newcomer, whereas roughly 4,600 women had attended coeducational colleges in 1870, by 1890 that number had increased to 39,500 and within ten years had grown still further, to 61,000 women.1 With their presence on campus more accepted by male peers and social commentators alike, female collegians of the 1890s and early 1900s encountered less pressure to prove themselves and their right to attain a higher education. Freed of the pioneers’ burden of forging a path and representing their sex, the second generation of female collegians turned their attentions largely to social and extracurricular concerns .2 Especially within the chapters of Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Pi Beta Phi, and the other women’s fraternities, the “gay coed” replaced the “serious scholar” as the identity of choice for those who came of age in the decades immediately surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. As much shapers of their environments as products of middle- and upper-middle-class American society, the fraternity women of the 1890s through the 1910s adopted a set of customs and concerns that placed a premium on appearance and sociability. Relieved of their predecessors’ charge of representing all womanhood in their actions, the second-generation sisters adopted aims for their fraternities that differed dramatically 2 43 from those of the first generation. No longer struggling and isolated female collegians in need of solidarity and support from others in the same predicament, the sisters of the 1890s and early 1900s deemphasized the intellectual aspect of their fraternities’ missions while accentuating the social side of Greek-letter life. Within Kappa Alpha Theta Fraternity, rather than spending their weekly meetings listening to one another recite papers and declamations, the sisters of the 1890s and early 1900s hosted parties and “at homes” for themselves, prospective members, and their male peers, rating themselves and one another according to the success of the entertainments and festivities they sponsored. To make their parties the most celebrated and popular affairs on campus and themselves the most attractive in a campus culture that placed increasing emphasis on heterosexual socializing,3 the Thetas of the second generation pledged and initiated women whose appearances and behavior would make a favorable impression upon their guests. Facing stiff competition from the growing number of women’s fraternities developing on campuses across the country, the Theta sisters on most campuses issued their bids in a hurry, often within days or even hours of meeting a new prospect, in an almost frenzied eagerness to “pin” the most “taking” students around them. With their peers in Kappa Kappa Gamma, Pi Beta Phi, Alpha Phi, and the other women’s fraternities doing likewise, a shift occurred among the women’s Greek-letter organizations , as the sisters turned away from intellectual and scholarly pursuits and centered instead on social and what some perceived as largely superficial affairs. The altered policies, practices, and concerns of the second-generation sisters provoked alarm within the ranks of their alumnae, who shuddered to see their cautious methods and serious concerns cast aside by their younger sisters. Together with the alumnae of several other women’s fraternities , which themselves were undergoing the same evolution in focus as Theta, the first generation of Kappa Alpha Theta sisters noted with fear the “haste” and “excess” of their collegiate members. Shocked by the speed with which the latter were pledging new members and the extravagance they displayed in their activities and entertainments, the older sisters worried about the toll these actions would take on their fraternities. They questioned the extent to which the second-generation members understood the meaning and purpose of a Greek-letter fraternity. How could two generations of fraternity women adopt for themselves such 44 | The Most Socially Eligible radically different concerns and practices and still claim each to be fulfilling the ideals of a “true” member? Women’s fraternities grew steadily in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. From only a handful of organizations with a few small chapters in 1880, by 1898 the female Greek system boasted seven societies, with a membership of almost 1,200 women. Only seven...