All Orgs That were founded before 1930/Why I pledged stories

[honeychile]

Alpha Delta Pi is the first secret society for college women in the world, appropriately founded at Georgia Wesleyan College, which is the first college for women in the United States. Founded on May 15, 1851 by Eugenia Tucker Fitzgerald, Ella Pierce Turner, Octavia Andrew Rush, Elizabeth Williams Mitchell, Sophronia Woodruff Dews, and Mary Evans Glass, the Adelphean Society consisted of young women who were consistently at the head of their class, and were mostly the daughters of Methodist pastors.

The Adelphean Society flourished alongside the next secret society, the Philomathean Society (Phi Mu, founded in 1852) almost 50 years before other sororities tried to woo them into the Greek Letter societies. In 1905, the Adelphean Society caved under pressure and changed their name (but not their ritual) to Alpha Delta Phi. There were already over 3,000 alumnae at that time. In 1913, the name was changed yet again to Alpha Delta Pi, due to a northern fraternity having the same name.

Alpha Delta Pi celebrated its 150th Anniversary in 2001, with nationwide celebrations, a commemorative book, Sisters; Celebrating 150 Years of Alpha Delta Pi Sisterhood written by Linda Welch Ablard, and a donation of $150,000 to the National Panhellenic Conference. In 2005, Memorial Headquarters renovation was finished, and a Dedication was held at the biannual Convention.

If you'd like to know more, you can read about it here.



I was impressed with the women of Alpha Delta Pi from the moment I met them; even more so when I realized I had known many prior to rush. My own rush story is here. As a New Member, I started to learn the history of ADPi, and I grew to love it even more - I knew that I had made the right decision.

I would never want someone to think that I have anything but the highest respect for my legacy chapter to this day. There have been times when I've wondered "what if?", and it's taken years for my mother to accept it. I also have a high regard for the other NPC organizations, and happily served the Panhellenic Society on my campus. But when I go back to our Creed, I am deeply honored to be one of the fortunate women who was invited to join the sisterhood of Alpha Delta Pi.