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

4 In Search of Unity: Fostering “High Ideals” in the Face of Antifraternity Sentiment, 1910–1920

In Search of Unity Fostering “High Ideals” in the Face of Antifraternity Sentiment, 1910–1920 The early years of the twentieth century saw enormous growth in the women’s Greek system. Between 1898 and 1912, the number of women pledged to fraternities skyrocketed, from nearly 12,000 to almost 40,000. Within ten years, the number had expanded still further, to 113,000 by 1923.1 Yet even as they blossomed, the women’s fraternities faced challenges from within their memberships. Generational and geographic differences threatened their unity, and clashes over the class and religion of potential members pitted member against member. By the mid-1910s, prejudice was so rife in some organizations that their leaders enacted restrictive policies to pacify those who would not acknowledge Jewish or Irish Catholic women as sisters. Across the United States, members of Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Alpha Phi, and other women’s fraternities looked at their sisters on different campuses and in different settings and wondered aloud if each was as worthy as they were to claim membership in their organization. At the same time as internal struggles plagued the women’s fraternities, external assaults in the form of increasing opposition also threatened Greek life. A steady though essentially powerless undercurrent throughout the nineteenth century, antifraternity sentiment swelled on campuses and in state legislatures in the early 1900s, while its proponents strengthened in number and influence. At the same time as increasing numbers and percentages of students were joining Greek-letter societies, growing groups of students, administrators, and wealthy alumni were railing against what they labeled the secrecy, elitist selectivity, antidemocratic nature , and anti-intellectualism of the fraternities. On campus after campus 4 113 in the 1910s, fraternities found their purpose and value questioned, and, especially in places where critics held monetary or positional influence, their activities curbed or even prohibited. How did the women’s Greek system respond to growing opposition? In what ways did antifraternity sentiment shape the actions and behavior of fraternity members in the early decades of the twentieth century? Opposition to the Greek system was not new, but prior to the 1910s, the opponents had won few gains. Since the founding of collegiate fraternities , individuals opposed to their selectivity, suspicious of their secrecy, or envious of their unity had mounted protests against them, charging members with everything from elitism to anarchy. Evangelical religious figures had spoken out against societies that privileged secrecy above revival confessions. Faculty members had taken exception to organizations that bound members to secrecy and required a pledge of loyalty that placed fraternity before college. Campus intellectuals had decried the undemocratic nature of the organizations, while students left unaffiliated also spoke out in opposition to the Greek system. Still, fraternities prospered .2 By the end of the nineteenth century, with the rapid growth of both male and female fraternities and the resultant increase in the Greek domination of campus activities, those opposed to fraternities began to speak out. They charged the Greek organizations with elitism and disruption and blamed them for negatively impacting the campuses on which they existed. In trustee meetings and in state assemblies, those opposed to the Greek system strove to convince those with monetary and political power that fraternities were “pernicious [organizations] against the highest and best development of the student and as American youth.”3 In 1901, for example, a protest submitted to the state legislators of Wisconsin likened the state university’s Greek system to the poisoned spring in Ibsen’s play, An Enemy of the People. “Your attention as a legislator is invited to the fact that the state of Wisconsin is maintaining a poisoned spring. . . . The poison is that of aristocratic exclusiveness, mainly introduced through certain associations known as Greek Letter fraternities.” Noting that “Wisconsin bears one of the worst reputations . . . [as a fraternity-run school] of any western institution,” the author called on the state legislators to join Princeton and Yale in “purging” the campus of its “poison” by banning its Greek system.4 114 | In Search of Unity While “A Poisoned Spring” did not capture immediate attention, eight years after its publication the state legislators called for an investigation of the University of Wisconsin’s Greek system. Labeling fraternities extravagant , elitist, and destructive to campus morale, state officials charged the Board of Regents to conduct an inquiry “for the purpose of remedying the antidemocratic and cliquelike tendencies...