Writing a Chapter History

[macallan25]

I saw our complete history when I was at the SAE temple in Evanston, Ill. Pretty crazy.....very extensive piece of work, many volumes.

[barbino]

Originally Posted by macallan25

I saw our complete history when I was at the SAE temple in Evanston, Ill. Pretty crazy.....very extensive piece of work, many volumes.

Evanston is a Chicago suburb (the first suburb north).
This is in my "neighborhood" & now you have me wanting to visit the SAE temple. I've never gone inside, though I've gone past it many times. I'd love to look at the SAE history - I'm somewhat of a history buff. I believe that Sigma Chi's headquarters is in Evanston, too (and I know that Alpha Phi's is). These are all on or very near to Northwestern University's campus.

The University of Chicago (Hyde Park) area of Chicago on the South side of the city is where the Alpha Kappa Alpha's headquarters is located. Sometimes I take Chicago for granted because so much is right around me that I forget that it is there. Thanks for reminding me, I'll let you know about that visit.

[bellwisdom]

I was chapter historian 2 semesters ago and needed to provide a chapter history for our new website. Well I wanted to do more than just a few paragraphs, I wanted to put together something big. I did everything in a timeline format but there was lots of stuff missing because information was hard to come by. I actually got more info from the University Archives, the University Yearbooks, and Greek Affairs. The chapter only had a one page paper about the chapter history so it wasnt as much help and the IHQ only had info that I already knew. I was also able to get even more info from the surrounding undergrad and alumni chapters too. It wasnt as successful as I wanted but I learned a lot more and added more to that one page history that we originally had. I also convinced the Chapter to add to the duties of the Chapter Historian, Alumni chair, and pledge class vice president's so that they are keeping something similar to a monthly log of what is going on so that 50 years from now no more info is lost if another historian has to write a Chapter History. If you have a National Historian I'm sure that could have great advise too.

[honeychile]

Another chapter sister* & I wrote our chapter's history while we were still in school. One "fun" thing we added was interviewing at least one alumna from each decade. We asked about songs, traditions, and how much some things cost (tuition, dues, basic cost of living items).

If I could make one suggestion to someone tackling their chapter history, I would remind them that, just as you'd get several points of view from interviewing current sisters, you'll get different opinions from other decades. It's best to try to get at least 2-3 commentaries for each decade.


*For those who have read my story about Sarai, she's the sister who wrote this with me.