|
The four founders
of Kappa Alpha Theta
Bettie Locke Hamilton
Alice Allen Brant
Bettie Tipton Lindsey
Hannah Fitch Shaw
In 1837, the Methodist Church established Indiana Asbury (now DePauw
University) in Greencastle, Indiana.
Indiana Asbury officially opened its doors to women in 1867, but not
without great uproar from the male students. The first women students
at Indiana Asbury were looking for ways to make friends and find
support and encouragement for their academic pursuits. They were
reviled by their teachers, taunted by their classmates, and ignored by
their girlhood friends who did the "right" thing and attended
conservatories for girls. It took these brave pioneers three years to
found Kappa Alpha Theta, the first Greek-letter Fraternity for women.
To be sure, there were societies for women before 1867, and some of
these had secret rituals with badges, passwords, mottoes, and other
symbols. But in 1870, Theta became the first women's Greek-letter
fraternity because its primary founder, Bettie Locke, wanted full
membership in a male fraternity. When the men asked her to wear their
fraternity badge as a "mascot," she responded, "If you won't initiate
me into your fraternity, I'll start my own." Thus, Kappa Alpha Theta
was established on January 27, 1870. In 1995, Kappa Alpha Theta
celebrated its 125th anniversary.
Less than one percent of all college-aged women in the United States
were enrolled in colleges and universities in 1870. These pioneers
challenged the commonly held notion that women had inferior minds. Yet
they sought a delicate balance as they still ascribed to the era's
belief in the values of "true womanhood."
In
explaining Kappa Alpha Theta's origins, Bettie Locke once said, "the
Fraternity was always second in my mind to coeducation. It was
organized to help the girls win out in their fight to stay in college
on a man's campus. We had to make a place for women in a man's
world, and the Fraternity was one means to that bigger end."
|