page_title: Fraternities and sororities
section_title: Establishment and early history
hierarchical_section_title: Fraternities and sororities / History / Establishment and early history
caption_attribution_description: English: The rear of the Wren Building at the College of William &amp; Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA.
context_page_description: Fraternities and sororities, or Greek letter organizations, also collectively referred to as "Greek life", are social organizations at colleges and universities. A form of the social fraternity, they are prominent in the United States and Canada. Similar organizations exist in other countries as well, including the Studentenverbindungen of German-speaking countries or the Goliardia in Italy.
  Similar, but much less common, organizations also exist for secondary school students, as do fraternal orders for other adults. In modern usage, "Greek letter organization" is often synonymous with the terms "fraternity" and "sorority". Two additional types of fraternities, professional fraternities and honor societies, incorporate some limited elements of traditional fraternity organization, but are generally considered a different type of association. Traditional fraternities of the type described in this article are often called "social fraternities".
  Generally, membership in a fraternity or sorority is obtained as an undergraduate student but continues, thereafter, for life. Some of these organizations can accept graduate students as well as undergraduates, per constitutional provisions.
context_section_description: The first fraternity in North America to incorporate most of the elements of modern fraternities was Phi Beta Kappa, founded at the College of William and Mary in 1775. The founding of Phi Beta Kappa followed the earlier establishment of two other secret student societies that had existed at that campus as early as 1750. In 1779 Phi Beta Kappa expanded to include chapters at Harvard and Yale.  By the early 19th century, the organization transformed itself into a scholastic honor society and abandoned secrecy.
  In 1825, Kappa Alpha Society, the oldest extant fraternity to retain its social characteristic, was established at Union College. In 1827, Sigma Phi and Delta Phi were also founded at the same institution, creating the Union Triad. The further birthing of Psi Upsilon (1833), Chi Psi (1841) and Theta Delta Chi (1847) collectively established Union College as the Mother of Fraternities.
  The social fraternity Chi Phi, although officially formed in 1854, traces its roots to 1824, and oldest.org considers it the oldest social fraternity.
  Fraternities represented the intersection between dining clubs, literary societies and secret initiatory orders such as Freemasonry. Their early growth was widely opposed by university administrators, though the increasing influence of fraternity alumni, as well as several high-profile court cases, succeeded in largely muting opposition by the 1880s. The first fraternity meeting hall, or lodge, seems to have been that of the Alpha Epsilon chapter of Chi Psi at the University of Michigan in 1845, leading to a tradition in that fraternity to name its buildings "lodges". As fraternity membership was punishable by expulsion at many colleges at this time, the house was located deep in the woods. The first residential chapter home, built by a fraternity, is believed to have been Alpha Delta Phi's chapter at Cornell University, with groundbreaking dated to 1878. Alpha Tau Omega became the first fraternity to own a residential house in the South when, in 1880, its chapter at the University of the South acquired one. Chapters of many fraternities followed suit, purchasing and less often, building them with support of alumni. Phi Sigma Kappa's chapter home at Cornell, completed in 1902, is the oldest such house still occupied by its fraternal builders.
caption: The fraternity system in North America began at the College of William and Mary in 1750.
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