Badges of Extinct/Absorbed Sororities
 

I've been looking at some histories of sororities and in every one of them they have displayed badges of the NPC members at the time of publishing.

The one that the following pictures come from at the time there were 25 members of the NPC and I thought it would be very interesting to show you all these pictures. What really inspired me to do this was that Theta Upsilon (QU that was up for bidding on ebay a few months ago.

The current NPC that were not a member of NPC in 1932 are

ASA
AST
AEF
DFE
FSS
SDT
SSS


The left are the pledge pins and the right are the badges

http://img93.exs.cx/img93/4788/adt.jpg

http://img93.exs.cx/img93/7717/bpa.jpg

http://img93.exs.cx/img93/8954/bso.jpg

http://img93.exs.cx/img93/8184/lo.jpg

http://img93.exs.cx/img93/8162/phiopi.jpg

http://img93.exs.cx/img93/505/spb.jpg

http://img93.exs.cx/img93/263/tu.jpg

(here is a color picture of Theta Upsilon)
http://img93.exs.cx/img93/2556/tu-c.jpg


Here is a picture of Iota Alpha Pi badge that was admitted into NPC membership in a latter date and went extinct in 1971, I just love this badge
http://img91.exs.cx/img91/4736/iapi.jpg

sorry for the quality, I did the best that I could do with black and white pictures. The color pictures I obtained off of ebay, so I take no credit for them.

Thank you for posting these, they are so interesting!

Is it just me, or does the Lambda Omega badge look an awful lot like a Chi Omega badge? Wonder if that ever led to any confusion?

that's so interesting! where did you find those pictures?

Alpha Delta Theta became part of Phi Mu :)...the badges were on display at our 150th convention.

There is actually an Iota Alpha Pi badge up on Ebay...I always wondered what that looked like.

badge collectors
 

there are quite a few badge collectors. E-bay has a lot of them
and often the sellers have no clue as to value, scarcity or even
the names. So, some great buys can be had.
I had an old Theta Nu Epsion fob badge, not the usual one worn
behind the left lapel. Gave it to a TKE badge collector, since have
learned that it was indeed scarce.
Some absolutely gorgeous ones have existed, some others are
diamond-encrusted, cannot count how many Sigma Chi ones.
But you better have some bucks behind you to really get into it
all. Looks like a fun collecting them, though. Strangely, few of the
sellers seem to even have access to a Baird's to check out these,
and some locals put out great badges, but they are worthless in
today's scheme of things 'cept to us filberts who collect everything
Me, I collect used cheese wrappers; have four and they are all
different. Cheers!

I know one of those sororities was absorbed by Delta Zeta in the early sixties. Does someone by any chance know which one?

Killarney,

The groups that merged with Delta Zeta are:

Beta Phi Alpha
Phi Omega Pi
Sigma Phi Beta
Delta Sigma Epsilon (one of the pictures that I dont have)
Theta Upsilon (Lambda Omega merged with them)

Heh, I really dont have the information that you requested, but all of these groups merged with DZ between I think 40s - 60s

like sageofages stated earlier, Alpha Delta Theta merged with Phi Mu

and Beta Sigma Omicron merged with Zeta Tau Alpha

those are all the badged represented in these pictures

Pi Kappa Sigma merged with Sigma Kappa
Theta Sigma Upsilon merged with Alpha Gamma Delta

And other past NPC groups that I dont have information on that I really would like information on are:

Pi Sigma Gamma
Sigma Iota Chi
Alpha Sigma Sigma
Alpha Beta Tau

Wow...those are so cool!

Our old (pre-reorg) badge looked a lot like our council badge. I wonder if any of them are still around.

http://www.burrpatt.com/alphasigmaalpha/ASAPins.asp

Is it just me? Am I the only one saddened by the loss of some of these groups? :( I mean the ones that didn't merge?

And question....for the ones that merge, do they carry on any of the "merge-ee"'s history? Did that make sense? I've had a headache all long....

Oh a related question re: expanding on UKDaisy's post and I thought about starting another one but why?

Questions to the Orgs that have been merged......do you guys talk about these orgs during your new member period (if privileged information, I understand), but since its part of your history it would be really interesting to learn.

wow, your new member pin is so pretty! I like the Phoenix pin too.I'm planning to have the whole upper part of my back done with a phoenix/sacred heart motif, it's a theme that reocurrs in my art a lot too (the phoenix/sacred heart). Even though I'm not an ASA (or a Alpha Sigma Phi). I just have an appreciation for the story of the phoenix

Ladies, I can't thank you enough for this thread! You've explained many questions I've had concerning some organizations that I've seen in old yearbooks but not in newer ones. I only wish I could return the favor!

Thanks much for the info, ms_gwyn! :)

I also noticed that BSO's pledge pin has a lamp on it, just like ours. I wonder if that's coincidence or not.

Phi Mu didn't "merge" with Alpha Delta Theta, so much as absorbed it. I think of a merger as two groups coming together and then moving forward EACH changed into one organization with parts of each (ala Phi Kappa Theta's history). That was not the case with the Phi Mu Alpha Delta Theta connection.

Does anyone know why exactly did some of these nationals die out? I'm just curious because up until this thread, I never knew there were any NPC's other than the 26 current ones.

You're kidding me right? Sigh, I see so many people using those as joke sorority/fraternity letters. Kinda makes me sad now that it used to be a real sorority.

That's what I thought too when I first saw those letters.

Oooh ooooh I know!

Jefferson Davis
Robert E. Lee
Stonewall Jackson

LOL I guess being the Phi Director teaches you ALL the random stuff in the Phi Manual...

Yes this was a real organization and they were admitted into associated membership with the NPC in 1947, along with others, in addition to AES sororities.

This is all the information that I have on this group, so I dont know if they were ever admitted fully into th NPC along with AEF, FSS, DFE, SDT, QFA, AST, DSE, PKS, SSS, QSU

Ah yes, Jeff, Bob and Stoney...the 3 MOST prominent honorary members.

Phi Mu has many more honorary members (faculty, patrons, etc) those gentleman are just the most notable of our founders' time.

Thanks! :) That is a particularly shiny one they are showing. The Phoenix is my favorite of all our symbols.

As for Alpha Sigma Sigma - perhaps they honestly just didn't think of it.

check Baird's
 

For those of you who want further light on the dissolution of the
many fraternities and sororities, get a copy of Baird's Manual.
It is in many libraries, and it can be borrowed through inter-library loan. The reasons for these outfits imploding or folding up
or merging are legion. Some were simply miserable clubs and
others were politically torn apart. In a very few cases were they
happy endings; most were not.
Theta U and I Alpha Pi were simply unsuccessful outfits, my own
opinion. I have seen some of their chapters, none were of a high
quality. Beta Sigma Omicron was one who placed chapters in
principally women's schools and could not compete on the other
"regular" campuses.
The "teachers college" ones were not without some top chapters,
though...but they simply felt they could no longer thrive in such an
environment. Delta Zeta & Alpha Gam got some goodies here.
I am not saying that in isolated locations there were no
competitive chapters. But they'd be rare, so this is a judgement call--no more.
Many heartbreaking stories in these, and if you are in a mood to
be depressed, get a copy of Baird's and read of these days...and
they are hardly halcyon.

Baird's Manual is my favorite part of working in Greek Affairs. I tell my friends that I have a wealth of seemingly useless fraternity and sorority information. Working where I do only intensifies it!

Imagine wearing those letters on your butt... :eek:

Maybe they were Alpha Sigma Sigma before "ASS" refered to anything other then a donkey???

but the letters would be

ASS

today it would be awful, back then, probably not so much a problem

What is the latest edition of Baird's? My school has the 20th edition, and it doesn't seem up-to-date.

Similar yes, but I doubt any confusion. What ever became of Lambda Omega?

In September of 1933, Lambda Omega merged with Theta Upsilon. On May 6, 1962, Theta Upsilon was accepted into membership in Delta Zeta Sorority.

As I said...no confusion -- Chi Omega never "merged" with any group.

The latest one was printed in I think 1991. They still have some left over and won't print another one until they are gone. The IFC bought the rights to it and took out a lot of stuff...the 1977 one is really the last decent one. Although in their defense, there seem to be so many new groups that putting it together now would require an insane amount of research.

Something else I'm curious about - did any of these sororities use nicknames or shortened versions of their names? Like AEPhi for Alpha Epsilon Phi, Kappa for Kappa Kappa Gamma, etc. Beta Sigma Omicron, for instance, is quite a mouthful...

What kind of information did they take out?

Over the summer I found a local libary that had the 1991 edition and spent a good two hours just pouring over everything. I was able to find my grandmother's ASA chapter that how now closed. It was pretty cool.

There was stuff about longtime local groups and fraternities/sororities that no longer exist.

Where did your grandmother go to school?

I think that Beta Sigma Omicron referred to themselves as Betas. I remember that old movie "Fraternity Row"and in the prologue, the narrator said that certain fraternities and sororites paired together for life. He listed them by full name but sometimes nickname. It struck me as odd that a fraternity would pair with Beta (Theta Pi). I realized much later that it was probably BSO.

Phi Omega Pi referred to themselves as POPs like sodas. I have one of their song books and it's pretty neat.

Phi Omega Pi were also the Phi O Pi's -- we used to have a chapter of them here at Wisconsin and that's how they were referred to in the yearbook.

I have two copies of the BSO new member manual. I would love to see a copy of their ritual, if only to find out if any of it is now part of ZTA ritual. We absorbed BSO back in the 60's I believe. The national was in financial trouble. The only chapters that closed were those that existed on campuses where ZTA already had a chapter.

I also have a 1920's edition of The Sorority Handbook by Ida Shaw Martin and a 1930's Bairds that I love to look through and learn.

My Dad's fraternity pin is beautiful. I wear it on my charm bracelet. I looked it up in "Baird's Manual" once & if I recall, it was from Alpha Lambda Tau? I wish I could remember which group they merged with -- Pi Kappa Alpha maybe?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...935673534&rd=1

anyone know who this is? Phi Epsilon Delta?