ΚΑΘ: Three Generations

Women’s fraternities, as sororities were first known, began to appear much later than men’s fraternities. The first fraternity for women, Kappa Alpha Theta, was founded in 1870 at what is now known as DePauw University. In 1871, this organization started a second (“beta”) chapter at Indiana University and became IU’s first women’s fraternity.

Louisa Wylie Boisen, the eldest daughter of Theophilus and Rebecca Wylie, was one of the first female students at IU and was an early member of Kappa Alpha Theta. In the 1920s, she wrote the following about her experiences:

In the spring of 1870, ... the girls who had founded Kappa Alpha Theta, the new Greek letter fraternity at De Pauw, wanted us to have a chapter at Indiana, and they were coming down to talk to us about it. ...

Of course I went, and I met our founders. ... The men’s fraternities were just then giving a good deal of trouble—I heard a lot about that from my father—and I feared the advent of a women’s fraternity would not be welcomed by either trustees or faculty. Fortunately … Beta Chapter was established in May, 1870. The weeks slipped by, and things went serenely on; everybody was happy, trustees, faculty, boys, girls. I realized that I had been unduly apprehensive and I was proud to have the Kite—at that time about an inch and a half long—pinned on me. …

It would undoubtedly amuse you of today to know the elaborate secrecy of our meetings in the old times. We were in very truth a secret society. Even the time and place of our meetings were shrouded in the blackest secrecy. The whispered word would go round–“Tonight, 7:30, Min’s”–and if by chance or hard work some inquisitive outsider should discover the appointed hour and place, well, we would just fool him by changing.

Louisa’s Theta legacy continued with her daughter, Marie Boisen (IU class of 1900), her niece, Reba Wylie (IU class of 1906), and her granddaughter, Louise Bradley, who joined as a freshman at IU in 1927.