Sigma Delta Rho

Sigma Delta Rho
ΣΔΡ
Founded 1909 (1909)
Amherst College
Type Social
Scope Local
Chapters 1 (defunct)

Sigma Delta Rho (ΣΔΡ) was a fraternity formerly active at Amherst College that eventually affiliated with Theta Xi before reverting to local status as Alpha Theta Xi, thereafter becoming defunct.

History

Founding and early years

The fraternity was founded in 1909 as the result of a membership split in the Hitchcock Club, a local campus literary society. Their first house was a rented property on Tyler Place. In 1913 the fraternity purchased and moved into a property which it continued to occupy until 1924 before acquiring a new house at 62 Snell Street.[1]

The Sigma Delta Rho house pictured in 1919

Sigma Delta Rho became briefly inactive with the onset of World War I. In 1922 alumni helped re-establish the chapter, initiating 22 undergraduates.[2]

Merger with Theta Xi

In 1932 Sigma Delta Rho affiliated with Theta Xi, becoming that fraternity's Alpha Mu chapter.[1] Their house was significantly rebuilt in 1940 to expand and modernize it, taking the official name "Humphries House" and later becoming informally known as "the Zoo" (a moniker it continued to hold until as recently as 2002, though the building is now a student-run cooperative).[3] The Amherst Theta Xi chapter became a local fraternity known as Alpha Theta Xi after its charter was pulled for "insubordination" in 1957 (most likely related to the initiation of an African-American).[4] By the 1970s, according to one account, it had started to attract "nonconformists" and "seemed to morph into a sort of counterculture theme house, merely going through the motions of being a fraternity."[5]

Symbols

The fraternity's coat of arms was designed by commission of Emily Butterfield and accepted by the fraternity in 1925, replacing a design that had been previously employed.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 "Sigma Delta Rho". amherstiana.org. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  2. ↑ "Sigma Delta Rho Comes Back". Amherst Graduates' Quarterly, Volume 12. 1922.
  3. ↑ Thoron, Joe (2002). "What's Cooking at the Zoo?". Amherst Magazine. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  4. ↑ "2 Fraternities Drop Chapters". Daily Illini. 27 September 1957.
  5. ↑ Dirks, Richard (2002). "Letters: Haight-Ashbury pad". Amherst Magazine. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  6. ↑ Butterfield, Emily (1931). College Fraternity Heraldry. Menasha, WI: Banta Publishing. p. 75.
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