It was founded in 1921, and has now grown to over 750 chapters all around the country. Its members include upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and professors.
Members gather for various activities periodically during the academic year.
Georgetown's chapter, Beta Pi, belongs to the Mid-Atlantic region, and is its oldest chapter. Each of the administrative levels offers important services to Phi Alpha Theta members. National headquarters sponsors a number of scholarships and cash prizes for students, a national history conference at which students may present their research, and a journal, The Historian , where students can publish papers and book reviews. The regional district coordinates an annual spring history conference where students read their research papers to students and professors from other campuses in the area. Typically, about a dozen students at Georgetown decide to present papers each year at the regional conference, and they often return having won some of the top paper prizes.