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HISTORY
OF THE SOCIETY
On December 5, 1776, a group of young men, students
at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg,
Virginia, met in the Apollo Room of the Raleigh
Tavern and formed the Phi Beta Kappa Society,
which they dedicated to high moral and intellectual
purposes. New England branches of the Society
were established at Yale in 1780 and at Harvard
in 1781, which ensured the perpetuation and propagation
of the society when the parent chapter became
inactive. During the following half century four
more chapters were founded: at Dartmouth in 1787,
Union in 1817, Bowdoin in 1825, and Brown in
1830. Then, after a pause of fifteen years, a
slightly more rapid expansion began in 1845.
At the end of the next half century of growth,
twenty-five chapters had been founded. In 1875
the Society extended the privilege of membership
to women.
The need of a closer unity and greater uniformity
of practices led, in 1883, to the organization
of the present national body, the United Chapters
of Phi Beta Kappa; its offices are located in
Washington, D.C. At present, there are 255 chapters.
The 150th anniversary, in 1926, became
the occasion for raising an endowment fund and
for exploring ways to encouraging scholarship
in the educational institutions of the country.
More recently the Society has joined in the defense
of the freedom of teaching and inquiry and of
the liberal ideal in education.
In 1877, the first Phi Beta Kappa graduate association
was founded in New York City by Elihu Root, distinguished
lawyer and statesman, who was joined by other
Phi Beta Kappa members from the region. There
are now approximately fifty associations in major
population centers throughout the country that
offer members the opportunity to continue an
active affiliation with Phi Beta Kappa after
graduation. More information appears
on the national
website.
The Rutgers Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was organized
on February 22, 1869, by Charter granted by the
Alpha Chapter of New York at Union College. The
Rutgers College Chapter is the Alpha Chapter
in the State of New Jersey and was the twentieth
Chapter to be established in the Nation. Upon
the graduation in 1922 of the first class in
the New Jersey College for Women, a section was
instituted in that division of the university,
now known as Douglass College; the College now
has its own chapter. In 1958, the National Council
authorized the establishment of the Newark College
Section of the Alpha Chapter, which was installed
on December 5 of that year. In the early 1980s,
at the time of the reorganization of Rutgers/New
Brunswick, students at Livingston College, University
College, and Cook College became eligible for
membership in the New Brunswick section.
The original organization at William and Mary
was a secret society, and the oath transmitted
to the first six Northern branches contained
a promise to "preserve inviolate the secrets
of the same." As a result of the anti-Masonic
agitation of the 1830s, most of the branches
followed the lead of Alpha of Massachusetts and
repealed the injunction of secrecy. They retained,
however, the model or key with its symbolic engraving.
The interpretation of these symbols and other "signs" of
the Society has continued to constitute a part
of the Form of Initiation.
The "signs" of the Society which tradition
has preserved are two. When members met, they
greeted each other by drawing the backs of the
index and middle fingers of the right hand across
the lips from left to right: thus, apparently,
affirming that their lips were sealed. They followed
this sign with a handshake, one of the traditional
forms of which is revealed to new members at
the end of the ceremony of initiation.
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Phi
Beta Kappa Honor Society
