College literary societies and Related Topics

The fraternity system in North America began at the College of William and Mary in 1755.

Fraternities and sororities

Fraternities and sororities, also referred to as Greek-letter organizations (GLOs) or, collectively, as "Greek life" in North America and the Philippines, are social organizations at colleges and universities.

The Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter house at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign

Wesleyan College, a women's college in Macon, Georgia, was the birthplace of Alpha Delta Pi and Phi Mu sororities. Image circa 1877.

U.S. Air Force, Airmen, presumably members of Sigma Phi Epsilon, display that fraternity's flag in Iraq in 2009.

Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity members with Georgia Air National Guard Col. Ato Crumbly at a protest in Atlanta, June 2020

The chapter house of Alpha Delta Phi at Cornell University

The Alpha Sigma Phi chapter house at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Members of Phi Kappa Sigma at Washington & Jefferson College in 1872

A dramatized depiction of a fraternity initiation ritual

Ronald Reagan was initiated into Tau Kappa Epsilon at Eureka College. George H.W. Bush joined Delta Kappa Epsilon at Yale University.

A depiction of fraternity hazing from the early 20th century

Members of the Miami University chapter of Sigma Chi, including founders Benjamin Piatt Runkle and Daniel William Cooper plus an unidentified woman, pose for a photograph at a 1909 reunion.

Fraternities represented the intersection between dining clubs, literary societies and secret initiatory orders such as Freemasonry.

Philolexian Society

One of the oldest college literary and debate societies in the United States, and the oldest student group at Columbia.

Philolexian is one of many literary societies that flourished at the nation's early colonial colleges.

Phi Kappa Literary Society

The Phi Kappa Literary Society is a college literary society, located at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, and is one of the few active literary societies left in America.

Kappa Alpha Society

The progenitor of the modern fraternity system in North America.

The organization represents the middle link between secret societies, literary societies, and Greek-letter organizations like Phi Beta Kappa.

Dartmouth College Greek organizations

Host to many Greek organizations, and a significant percentage of the undergraduate student body is active in Greek life.

The second physical plant of Kappa Kappa Kappa, located at 22 North College Street and occupied by the fraternity from 1894 to 1924. The fraternity added the "goat room" (meeting room) at the rear.

Dartmouth Beta House, circa 1920, would later become home to the Tucker Foundation.

Delta Tau Delta, shown here circa 1915, would in 1960 become today's Bones Gate fraternity.

The brotherhood and physical plant of Lambda Chi Alpha in the 1922 Dartmouth College yearbook, The Aegis

Social fraternities at Dartmouth College grew out of a tradition of student literary societies that began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Euphradian Society

The Euphradian Society, also known as ΦΑΕ (Phi Alpha Epsilon), a local society is a literary society founded in 1806 at the University of South Carolina, then known as South Carolina College.

Demosthenian Literary Society

The Demosthenian Literary Society is a literary society focused on extemporaneous debate at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.

Clariosophic Society

The Clariosophic Society, also known as ΜΣΦ (Mu Sigma Phi), is a literary society founded in 1806 at the University of South Carolina, then known as South Carolina College, as a result of the splitting in two of the Philomathic Society, which had been formed within weeks of the opening of the college in 1805 and included virtually all students.

University of Georgia

Public land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia.

Lyman Hall, one of founders of the University of Georgia

Abraham Baldwin, one of the founders and first president of the University of Georgia

Mary Ethel Creswell, in 1919, the first woman to earn an undergraduate degree at the university

This postcard depicts Mary Lyndon Hall (built in 1938), named after the first female student at UGA to earn a graduate degree.

Zell Miller, UGA alumnus and former Governor and U.S. Senator who helped establish the HOPE Scholarship

The Peabody Awards (statuettes pictured) originated at, and are awarded by, the University of Georgia

Lumpkin House on Cedar Street on the UGA campus

Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences

Richard B. Russell Jr. Special Collections Libraries Building

A fountain in the State Botanical Garden of Georgia

Stegeman Coliseum at UGA hosted 1996 Summer Olympics events.

UGA students reside in Trinity College while at Oxford University.

The R/V Savannah research vessel at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography

University of Georgia dormitories on Sapelo Island.

Coastal Plain Experiment Station in Tifton.

UGA Health Sciences Campus Administration Building – Winnie Davis Hall

The College of Environment and Design building at the University of Georgia is a LEED certified structure that features 72 solar panels and water reclamation technology.

The first football squad at the University of Georgia in 1892.

The Olympic flag waves at the 1996 games.

Uga VI, the official live mascot of the Georgia Bulldogs 1999–2008

The ringing of the Chapel Bell is a tradition held by students and alumni of the University of Georgia.

Terrell Davis, Pro Football Hall of Famer

Natasha Tretheway, United States Poet Laureate

The university has two of the oldest literary societies in the English-Speaking world focused on extemporaneous debate, the Demosthenian Literary Society and the Phi Kappa Literary Society.

Huntington University (United States)

Private Christian university in Huntington, Indiana.

Among the first student publications and organizations were the Central Literary Data (later The Huntingtonian), the Philomathean Literary Society, the Zetalethean Literary Society, and the Debating Club, as well as student singing clubs and athletic teams for both sexes.