page_title: Sigma Kappa
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Sigma Kappa / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Founders of the Sigma Kappa Sorority. Sigma Kappa Official Page
context_page_description: Sigma Kappa is a sorority founded in 1874 at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.
  In 1874, Sigma Kappa was founded by five women: Mary Caffrey Low Carver, Elizabeth Gorham Hoag, Ida Mabel Fuller Pierce, Frances Elliott Mann Hall and Louise Helen Coburn. The sorority has initiated 172,000 members, has 122 collegiate chapters, and has over 110 alumnae chapters. It is officially partnered with the Maine Sea Coast Mission to raise money for the Mission's programs, and it also includes gerontology with an emphasis on Alzheimer's disease and research its other initiatives.
  The sorority is one of 26 members of the National Panhellenic Conference of national women's fraternities, joining the conference in 1904.
context_section_description: In 1871, Mary Caffrey Low Carver became the first and only female student at Colby College in Maine until Elizabeth Gorham Hoag, Ida Mabel Fuller Pierce, Frances Elliott Mann Hall and Louise Helen Coburn were admitted and enrolled in 1873. As the only women, they associated frequently and decided to form a society. They were instructed by the college administration that they would need to present a constitution and bylaws with a petition requesting permission to form Sigma Kappa. On November 9, 1874, the faculty approved their petition. Sigma Kappa annually celebrates November 9 as its Founders' Day.
  Low was the first woman to appear on the sorority's rolls and the first to preside over an initiation, of which Coburn wrote a large portion. The first Sigma Kappa emblem was designed by Hoag, who died shortly thereafter of tuberculosis. Much of the original initiation music was written by Hoag's cousin, Emily Peace Meader, who was inducted shortly before Hoag's death in 1875. Mann Hall was the first to marry (a fellow Colby student).
  In the first constitution, chapters were limited to 25 members, and so Beta chapter and Gamma chapter were also established at Colby College as more joined. Early records indicate that the groups met together, but in 1893, the members voted to stop expanding inside the college, meaning that the Alpha chapter could initiate to the limit of 25, but Beta and Gamma chapters could initiate no more and would eventually disappear. The vote also meant that the members began expansion outside of Colby College.
  Expansion began in 1904 at Boston University, and in 1905, Sigma Kappa joined the National Panhellenic Conference. The sorority published first published its magazine, the Sigma Kappa Triangle, in 1907. In 1918, the sorority adopted a philanthropic partner, the Maine Sea Coast Mission, and in 1924, it established its first national headquarters in Reading, Massachusetts, which would move to Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1936. In 1937, it began sending out field consultants for collegiate chapters.
  In 1954, Sigma Kappa adopted gerontology as its third philanthropy. In 1959, it absorbed another social sorority, Pi Kappa Sigma. In 1962, it established a separate branch, the Sigma Kappa Foundation, to manage its philanthropy funds, and added Alzheimer's disease as a focus for its gerontology philanthropy in 1984. In 1992, it began another program as part of its gerontology initiatives, "Inherit the Earth". In 1993, it established a housing corporation.
caption: Sigma Kappa Founders
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