Geographical Breadth of early expansion?
 

For Alpha Phi Omega, I've always found it fascinating that due to the support of the Boy Scouts of America that our first chapters are as spread out as they are. Our first six chapters include a chapter in an Atlantic Coast state (Pennsylvania), a Gulf Coast state (Alabama) and a Pacific Coast state (California).

However most of the Social Fraternities and Sororities seem to have had their first few chapters much more compact. I know that some of it is that especially for the pre-civil war fraternities, that there just were many colleges in the Western half of the US. But do any of the NIC/NPC/NPHC fraternities founded prior to 1950 have that sort of geographic breadth among their first half dozen or so chapters?

Alpha's early expansion was fairly wide - from Toronto to Chicago to Richmond for the first ten chapters from 1906-1911. We went where African American college students and graduates were.

May 30, 1904 Alpha Syracuse University

June 16, 1905 Beta* University of Wisconsin

January 12, 1906 Gamma Wesleyan University

February 14, 1908 Delta University of Minnesota

May 14, 1908 Epsilon University of Kentucky

June 2, 1908 Zeta Ohio University

June 8, 1908 Eta DePauw University

October 10, 1908 Theta Goucher College

March 12, 1909 Iota University of Washington

It took us just under 5 years for our 9th chapter to allow us to say we reached "coast to coast" - starting in NY and reach to Washtington on the left coast.

Our 19th chapter made us International when we were 15 years old with the installation of Tau Chapter at the University of Toronto on March 7, 1919.

Alpha Omicron Pi

1. NY (Barnard) 1897
2. LA (Sophie Newcomb/Tulane) 1898
3. NY (NYU) 1900
4. TN (U of Tennessee) 1902
5. VA (Randolph Macon Woman's) 1903
6. NE (U of Nebraska) 1903
7. CA (Cal Berkeley) 1907
...
40. Ontario (U of Toronto) 1930

Pretty varied right off the bat, and then international in 1930.

Alpha Phi
 

TTKA was primarily a southern fraternity until the early 1900s

1) Founded 1868 - UVA
37) 1st Midwestern Chapter 1910 - Mizzou
42) 1st West Coast Chapter 1912 - Cal - Berkeley
171) 1st International Chapter 1970 - Windsor

1953 Bowling Green State University (OH)
1958 Eastern Michigan University
1962 University of Bridgeport (CT)
*** 1967 Formation of the national organization ***
1970 Texas A&M University

The jump from Bowling Green, OH to Ypsilanti, MI seems very natural. They're only a couple of hours apart. And even the migration to Connecticut doesn't seem unusual. What I couldn't figure out was how those three little chapters wound up with a colony way down in Texas before the dawn of the digital age.

I finally got the answer to that question just a few years ago when I met the founder of that Texas A&M chapter. Apparently one of the APO brothers at TAMU was from New Jersey. After spending the summer at home and hearing about OPA from his girlfriend (who attended U Bridgeport), he came back to school and advised the APO Sweetheart to start one of those OPA sorority chapters at A&M.

That APO Sweetheart was the woman who told me the story 40 years later and she's still a sweetheart! I'm particularly grateful that APO wasn't coed for a few more years, because Pam would definitely have joined APO with her two older brothers. Even worse, she probably would not have founded the OPA chapter at A&M… the one where I first discovered OPA years later.

I found this to be really interesting so I thought I would chime in with Sigma Kappa's initial expansion efforts. We had a unique situation at Colby College, having our first three chapters located there. =)

Alpha: Colby College
Beta: Colby College
Gamma: Colby College
Delta: Boston University
Epsilon: Syracuse
Zeta: George Washington
Eta: Illinois Wesleyan University
Theta: University of Illinois

Contributing with ADPi's original expansion:
1851 [Alpha] Wesleyan College for Women, Macon, GA
1905 [Beta] Salem College - Winston-Salem, NC
1905 [Gamma] Mary Baldwin College
1905 [Delta] University of Texas - Austin
1906 [Epsilon] Tulane University
1907 [Zeta] Southwestern University
1907 [Eta] University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa
1908 [Theta] Lawrence University
1909 [Iota] Florida State University
1910 [Kappa] Samford University (Howard College of A&M)
1910 [Lambda] Brenau College
1910 [Mu] Women's College of Alabama
1910 [Nu] Randolph-Macon College
1911 [Omicron] Duke University
1911 [Pi] Iowa State University
1911 [Rho] Boston University
1912 [Sigma] University of Illinois
1912 [Tau] University of Kansas
1912 [Upsilon] Washington State University

We didn't get to the West Coast until fairly late in our original chapters, interestingly enough.

Pi Beta Phi was founded in 1867 in Monmouth, Illinois. The second chapter was at Iowa Wesleyan in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. The Mississippi River separated the two states, Illinois and Iowa. While there are bridges across the river today, it was much more difficult back then.

In 1891, the chapter at Sophie Newcomb, the coordinate of Tulane, was chartered. Two years later, in 1893, the chapter at Stanford University was chartered. Stanford open in 1891. The first eastern chapter was Vermont Alpha at Middlebury College. It was chartered in 1893. Chapters at Syracuse and Boston College followed in 1896.

I didn't know that! Can you talk more about that?

Kappa Delta stayed pretty close to home in the 1st few years.
1897 ( Alpha) Longwood
1902 (Beta) Chatham Episcopal, (Gamma) Hollins and
Sigma (Gunston Hall)
1903 (Epsilon Prime) Elizabeth, (Theta) Randolph-Macon
Phi-Psi Fairmont
1904 (Zeta) Alabama, (Phi Delta) St Mary's, (Kappa Alpha)
Florida State and (Rho Omega Phi)
1905 (Delta) College for Women
1907 (Iota) Caldwell and (Lambda) Northwestern.
1908 (Omicron) Ill. Wesleyan and (Sigma Sigma) Iowa St.
1909 (Epsilon) LSU and Epsilon Omega (Kentucky)

Initially, chapter membership was limited to 25 women, so as the sorority grew, they established the Beta and Gamma groups. At the time when they initially established Beta and Gamma, all three groups met together. Eventually they stopped initiating members into the Beta and Gamma groups, and then in 1984 Colby College banned greek life. =( So unless something HUGE happens, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma chapters are gone forever.

Gamma Phi early expansion seems to be all over the northeast, upper Midwest and west coast, with maybe the most focus on flagship state schools in the Midwest.

1874 Alpha - Syracuse (NY)
1882 Beta - Michigan (MI)
1885 Gamma - Wisconsin-Madison (WI)
1887 Delta - Boston University (MA)
1888 Epsilon - Northwestern (IL)
1893 Zeta - Goucher College (MD)
1896 Eta - Cal - Berkeley (CA)
1897 Theta - U of Denver (CO)
1901 Iota - Barnard (NY)
1903 Kappa - Minnesota (MN)
1903 Lambda - U of Washington (WA)
1905 Mu - Stanford (CA)
1908 Nu - U of Oregon (OR)


We didn't really hit the south until 1916 with Upsilon (Hollins in Virginia), 1924 with Alpha Theta (Vanderbilt in Tennessee), 1928 with Alpha Mu (Rollins in Florida), 1930 with Alpha Pi (West Virginia U) and with Alpha Rho (Birmingham-Southern in Alabama).

^^^ At the 2008 Convention, intl. President Linda Daniel Johnson spoke about the Sorority's early expansion. She said that early on, Sorority leaders were very selective in deciding where to charter new chapters, with one qualification being that the universities needed to be at least as prestigious/rigorous/well-known as Syracuse. This limited our early expansion, and we did not grow as quickly as a number of other groups.