Syracuse University has the distinction of being home to the first fraternity house owned by women. There were no dormitories for women when Alpha Phi and Gamma Phi Beta were founded in 1872 and 1874, respectively. In 1884, the Alpha Phi chapter gave up the meeting rooms it rented in a downtown bank. According to Alpha Phi Fraternity (1931), plans were made to rent a house "where the out-of-town girls could live and where one room could be used for a chapter hall. The experiment proved a success, and at the end of a year it was suggested that the girls build and own a chapter house." (p. xxiii)
Jennie Thornburn [Sanford], an 1887 Alpha Phi initiate, recounted the story of Alpha Phi’s chapter house and she gave credit to Grace Latimer [Merrick], for "making practical by figures, by argument and by enthusiasm the possibility of building and owning a house. At first we thought it a crazy idea; it was certainly novel - no girls had ever owned a chapter house." (Alpha Phi Fraternity, 1931, p. 142)
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