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SIGMA KAPPA lulumn 1973 :hi angle Our Founders in I87 4- Louise Helen Coburn Frances Mann Hall Elizabeth Hoag Mabel Fuller Pierce Mary Low Carver VOLUME 67 AUTUMN 1973 NUMBER 3 Official Magazine of Sigma Kappa Sorority Founded at Colby College, November, 1874 FRANCES WARREN BAKER, Editor NATIONAL COUNCIL Cover-Our Five Founders in their college days . National President-Mrs. Gordon Duncan, 6416 Garland, Fort Worth, 3 First 30 of Sigma Kappa's 100 Years Tex. 76116 11 Centennial Convention--Register Now lsi Vice President-Mrs. Armand Paquette, RR 5, Western Heights, 12 See Reconstructed Strawbery Banke Monticello, Ind. 47960 13 A Great Event 2nd Vice President-Mrs. W. P. Haddon, 698 Parsippany blvd., 14 Convention Tour Boonton, N.J. 07005 16 What Lorah Monroe Meant to LK National Director of MembeHhip­ 20 Senator Margaret Chase Smith Mrs. Ritter Collett, 1821 Pinecrest dr., Dayton, Ohio 45414 22 Recommendation for National Council National Director of Extension­ 23 Final Tribute to Ruth Donnelly Mrs. Leslie Collins, 8230 S.E. 59th 24 National Collegiate Awards st., Mercer Islan?, Wash. 980'40 Heads Panhellenic in Grand Rapids National Secretary-Treasurer-Mrs. 25 E. D. Taggart, 3433 Washington 26 A Tribute to Diane Jenson Bennett blvd., Indianapolis, Ind. 46205 27 Florida Citizen of the Month Collegiate Council Representatives­ Deborah Butcher, 10307 Hedge­ 29 Hostess Chapters Meet for Convention way dr., Dallas, Tex. 75229; 30 She Still Keeps Up on Children's Books Eleanor Sue Jones Tiller, 921 Broad­ wood, Kingsport, Tenn. 37660 31 Our College Chapters Are Active 39 Salient News About Sigmas CENTRAL OFFICE 42 Alumnre Are Active Too 3433 Washington blvd., Indianapolis, Ind. 46205. Director, Mrs. E. D. Taggart. 47 Marriages and Deaths TRIANGLE STAFF Editor-in-Chief-Mrs. ]. Stannard Baker, SIGMA KAPPA TRIANGLE is published in Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, 433 Woodlawn ave., Glencoe, Ill. 60022 by George Banta Company, Inc., offici al publishers for Sigma Kappa Sorority at Curtis Reed plaza, Menas ha, Wis. 54952. Subscription price S2 a ye ar ; single copies 50¢; life subscription $15 . Co llege Editori-Mrs. ]. B. Coleman, 78 Meadow lane, Meadow Estates Wheel- Send change of address, subscriptions, and correspondence of a business nature to Mrs. E. D . Taggart, 3433 Washington blvd ., Indianapolis, Ind. 46205 . ing, W .Va. 26003 ' Mrs. Henry Booske, 2026 N orthbrook Correspondence of an editorial nature is to be addressed to Mrs. ]. Stannard Baker 433 Woodlaw n ave., Glencoe, Ill. 60022. Chapters, colleges and alum­ dr., Lancas ter, Pa. 17601 nee , ~ us t send manuscri pt in time to reach their respective editors before the Alumn4 Editor-Mrs. Harold B. Lines, fifteenth of M arch, June, October, and December. 234 Salt Springs rd., Syracuse, N .Y. Second-class postage paid at Indianapolis, Indiana and at additional mai ling 13224 offices. Printed in U.S.A. At Colby two Women's Residence Halls are named to honor two of our Founders-Mary Low Carver and Louise Helen Coburn who were among the first five women students admitted to Colby College. A Few Historical Facts About the Wentworth Hotel Construction was begun in August of 1873 with the Smith. official opening on June 20, 1874. In 1877 a wing was The negotiators in the Peace Conference stayed he added toward the back. The hotel was three stories until from Aug. 8 to Sept. 5 in 1905 while preparing th 1879 when Frank Jones and a Mr. Beckwith bought it Russian-Japanese Treaty. Informal negotiations we and added another story, towers to both ends and the done here. The treaty was drawn up and originally ini Swiss chalet roof. The dining room wing was con­ tialled in the hotel, but formally signed at the Nav structed in 1888. Base Sept. 5, 1905. In 1898 the management started the Colonial Wing The early owners, Jones and Beckwith, brought mos as a separate venture because there was a law against of the beautiful antiques from Europe. The tall-boy i the size of wooden structures. The law changed in the center of the dining room, a piece of rare beaut1 1902, and it was joined to the hotel proper. and workmanship, probably has never been moved sine After World War I the front of the hotel was re­ it was first deposited there. decorated and the gingerbread of the Victorian decor Don't miss the fabulous antique grandfather's clo removed. It is interesting to note the pictures of then in the lobby. It plays a tune on chimes before it strik and now in the glass case. Since World War I the the quarter hour, half hour, and the hour. You will alsq hotel has remained basically the same, except that the enjoy the hand-painted ceiling in the Rotunda section of back has been pushed out a little for a Avenida Com­ the lobby and the collection of historical interest in thi plex by the present owners, Mr. and Mrs. James Barker room and the writing room just opposite . .i2A SIGMA KAPPA TRIANGLE :Jhe :Jir:!l 30 'ijear6 o/ Sifjma _}(appa ~ 100 'ijear:! B y LILLIAN M. PERKINS, o, N ational Historian Sigma Kappa Sorority, founded Nov. 9, for an education, but their scope was decidedly 1874, celebrates its Centennial Nov. 9, 1974. limited. Vassar college had been founded in One hundred years of growth has stimulated the 1865, the earliest of the women's colleges. minds and hearts of more than fifty thousand Colby College, Waterville, Maine, was Sigma Kappas. We are proud of our sorority founded in 1820 as Waterville college; at its and what the years have accomplished. semi-centennial in 1870 Judge Dickerson pro­ Looking backward, we find that the simple posed that the college make "immediate provi­ life prevalent in the United States just before sion for the admission of women to all the ad­ Sigma Kappa was founded was in a state of vantages of the college." The proposal was change. The ending of the Civil War in 1865 made to the trustees in August 1871 and was had brought the reconstruction era, industrial immediately approved. Our Founder, Mary Caf­ expansion, and the rapid settlement of the frey Low, promptly grasped the opportunity West. The country was no longer predomi­ and entered Colby in the fall of 1871, the only nantly agricultural but developing rapidly in woman to do so. It was not until the fall of manufacturing, milling, and mining. Horse cars 1873 that four more girls joined Mary Low; were the usual means of transportation in the from then on women students were a customary cities. Gas lights were just beginning to be re­ sight at Colby. Bates college admitted women in placed by kerosene lamps. The first trans-conti­ 1864; the University of Vermont the same year nental railroad had been completed in 1869, Colby did, 1871. and the typewriter had been invented that same So, on Nov. 9, 1874, we find the five girls year. The telephone was still to come-it v:as then attending Colby college in Waterville, not until 1876 that it was patented. Maine, joyfully reading the letter from the fac­ In 1874 the careers open to women were very ulty answering favorably their petition sent in limited. A woman could be a dressmaker; she the early spring of 1874 requesting permission could teach music; she could teach the delicate to form Sigma Kappa Sorority. From Mary Low art of painting china; she could teach in ele­ Carver's records we have learned that "a Mon­ mentary schools, private or public; and the bur­ day was the day the faculty letter came giving geoning mills were eager for female mill hands. those who petitioned the right to announce the All these careers brought very low pay. As for founding"; and "a Monday of November the higher education, women just were not consid­ reply came and it seemed almost a miracle that ered college material, as some college professors the announcement could be made the second put it, "because of their delicate health" and week of November, which was better than "because of their insufficient brain power." planned." A check of the calendar for November But the old notion of the female incapacity 1874 gives us the date: Monday, Nov. 9, 1874. for learning was slowly becoming outmoded. The five girls who so eagerly awaited faculty Co-education had been very successfully tried in permission to start Sigma Kappa on its way the Middle West. Genesee Wesleyan Seminary were: Mary Caffrey Low, Elizabeth Gorham in Syracuse, N.Y., was the first school to admit Hoag (known as Lizzie), Ida Mabel Fuller women in 1851. That school later became Syra­ (known as Ida May), Frances Elliott Mann, cuse university. Oberlin college, Antioch, and and Louise Helen Coburn. The influence of our Northwestern followed suit. five Founders on our sorority cannot be over­ By 1872 seven more colleges, all denominati­ stated. onal, admitted women, and eight state universi­ Mary Caffrey Low had entered Colby college ties. All of these schools were west of the Alle­ in the fall of 1871, the only woman student for ghanies, Mt. Holyoke Seminary for women was two years, competing most successfully with her chartered in 1836, but it did not become a uni­ male classmates and seeing her dreams fulfilled versity until 1892. Seminaries and state normal and the "posterity" she visualized thronging the schools were the usual places for women to go halls of Sigma Kappa. AUTUMN 1973 A 3 t. College girls of today will have trouble pictur­ ing the atmosphere of the early period of Sigma Kappa history. After Colby's first step in open­ ing her doors to women in 1871, with Mary Low the only woman to enter, there was no sud­ den flocking to the college by women.

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