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After writing a long reply, it was lost in cyberspace, so I am cutting and pasting something I wrote on the Pi Phi blog. It covers the same points I made in my lost diatribe. In addition, take a look at the Coat of Arms. The eagle holds an "IC" in one talon and a Pi Beta Phi badge in another. This signifies the oneness of the organization.
Can any of us who are Pi Phis today even imagine what life was like in 1867? No electricity, no indoor plumbing, no telephones, no cars — so many of the things we take for granted in our lives today had yet to be invented. In addition, the college curriculum was very different than it is today. Recitation was a large part of college classes. There were no football teams or organized collegiate sporting events in Monmouth in 1867. Intercollegiate rivalries had to do with oratory and debating.
On that Sunday afternoon in April 1867, the women who wanted to form an organization like the men’s fraternities then at Monmouth named it I.C. Sorosis. Its secret motto was Pi Beta Phi. Nancy Black is credited with picking the Greek letters. In researching Greek-letter organizations, I have found some people who think that I.C. Sorosis and Pi Beta Phi are two separate organizations. Nothing could be further from the truth. By the 1880s, some chapters were using the Greek letters. The Arrow made its debut in 1885. Kansas Alpha at the University of Kansas took charge of the project. The first page of volume 1 of The Arrow states “an organ of Pi Beta Phi.”
There was never any discussion as to what the Greek letters would be when the chapters decided they wanted to use Greek letters, which is proof that they are the same organization. There is no evidence that any other letters were ever suggested. The three Greek letters that were with the organization since those first meetings in the southwest second floor bedroom of Major Holt’s house in Monmouth, Illinois, are the three letters every chapter used when they took on Greek letters. Some chapters started using those Greek letters long before the change became official. When the vote was finally taken at the 1888 Convention, the question was whether to change the official name from I.C. Sorosis to Pi Beta Phi, not what the new name would be.
I have also come across references that I.C. Sorosis was a literary society and not a women’s fraternity. I supply the June 18, 1867 issue of the Monmouth College Courier to discount such a statement. There is a column for the goings-on of the four literary societies. There is another column for “Greek Fraternities” and I.C. is included in this listing.
Yes, it would have been better had the founders used the Greek letters for the organization’s name. It was their intention from the start to have a fraternity for women. The word sorority had yet to be coined. That would not happen for another 15 years. It was Syracuse Latin professor Frank Smalley who used the word upon hearing that the Gamma Phi’s had chartered a second chapter at the University of Michigan. “I presume that you young women are now members of a sorority,” he explained.
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--KnightShadow
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