[BetaIotaDZ]

Hello PAS:

Delta Zeta was founded in Sept 1902 when the first few women matriculated at Miami of Ohio. Per the October 1902 edition of the The Miami Student campus newspaper:

“A Sorority is Announced

‘On September 19th six of our progressive Co-eds organized a sorority. It is a local organization at present, but our girls hope to have sufficient success to warrant them putting chapters in other schools.’”

So the group began with the goal of becoming a national organization. Delta Zeta was incorporated in the state of Ohio on 24 October 1902 (date on incorporation papers).

The October 1903 edition of The Miami Student has the first mention of a newer group QT. Soon this group would adopt the Greek letters Phi Tau. In the very earliest pictures of Phi Tau sisters, there is a Tri-Delta pennant on the wall.

I think all but one of Delta Zeta's founders had transferred from and/or graduated from another university to Miami so they were older and ready for teaching careers and marriage. Only Julia Bishop and Luella Crugar returned in the fall of 1903. They were determined recruiters and by March of 1904 Delta Zetas had had two more initiations and had established rooms at Hepburn Hall. Things were small back then – by December 1904 DZ had 11 members and 1 pledge and Phi Tau had 10 members and 2 pledges.

In 1905 DZ and Phi Tau collegians each approached different sororities of the newly organized Inter-Sorority Conference (later National Panhellenic Conference) to discuss affiliation. Apparently Miami did not have sufficient female population to encourage a national. No national was ready to come to Oxford. So after much discussion and the counsel of administration advisors to both groups, the girls were encouraged to merge and petition a national organization again. I would just guess that a member or two of Phi Tau was a Tri-Delta transfer (just a hunch) because it was decided by the college girls to combine as Phi Taus and repetition Tri-Delta. The Delta Zeta alumnae were a little bit heartbroken but they understood the desire of the college girls to be in a national group before they graduated. And so it was – the Delta Zeta constitution, ritual and ritual items were burned and Bliss Glenn, Mary Belle Martin, Mary McSurely, Arminta Baughman, Florence Kerr, Marjorie Grant, Daisy Minnich, Angeline Haworth, Helen Daniels and Lorena Beard were released to become Phi Taus in the fall of 1906.

I have a recollection that an edition of “The Sorority Handbook” by Ida Shaw Martin, told a story of these women holding the distinction of having been initiated into two national sororities. Tri-Delta being established with 25 chapters nationally when DZ and Phi Tau merged in 1906, and Delta Zeta being a national by the time Mrs. Martin published the story. You mentioned page 482 of an edition of Baird’s. I could not relocate the site in the editions I have downloaded of either “The Sorority Handbook” or “American College Fraternities”.

But Delta Delta Delta did not come to Miami and absorb Phi Tau until 1911. So the Delta Zeta collegians who were released to become Phi Taus would have graduated by then. Perhaps most affiliated with Tri-Delta as alumnae. Also by then Delta Zeta had done its Phoenix (spring 1908), written a new ritual and constitution, then established itself as a national and a member of NPC (1909). So DZ was the first national sorority at Miami of Ohio. Tri-Delta was the second national sorority at Miami in 1911, with Tri-Sigma and Chi Omega coming in 1912.

Delta Zeta never merged with Tri-Delta, Delta Zeta merged with Phi Tau and then reestablished as a separate sorority before Tri-Delta absorbed Phi Tau. Ida Shaw Martin would later play a major roll in NPC mergers that did involve Delta Zeta.