With the establishment of a new fraternity at Swarthmore, we thought we'd take a look back to the heyday of Swarthmore's fraternities--

By 1914, the fraternities of Kappa Sigma, Phi Kappa Psi, Delta Upsilon, Phi Sigma Kappa, and Tau Alpha Omicron, and the Sororities Kappa Alpha Theta, Pi Delta Phi, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and Delta Gamma were announcing their dozens of new pledges on the front page of the Phoenix each September, just as they would for the next few decades.

When the Women's Student Buildings, now known as Bond and the Lodges, were built next to Worth in 1925, there were 6 sororities: Chi Omega and Phi Mu had joined the list. Each sorority pledged $10, 000 to pay for the cost of a Lodge containing a kitchen, locker-room, living and meeting room, guest room for alumnae, and bathroom.

The 1929 Swarthmore songbook contained many fraternity and Sorority songs, including these gems:

But sororities would not last much longer at Swarthmore. In November of 1931, the abolition of sororities was seriously proposed for the third time and final time. President Aydelotte issued a statement which read, in part, "When I came to Swarthmore in 1921 there were 153 members of Women's fraternities, constituting just over 60% of the women then in college; in this academic year of 1931-32 there are 228 members of Women's fraternities, constituting over 77% of the women now in college. The result is a situation which tends to be uncomfortable for the minority left outside."

By that January, three plans had been proposed: limiting the size of sororities, postponing membership until sophomore year, and the abolition of sororities on campus. The Phoenix threw its weight behind the third of these options in an editorial on January 12, but the decision ultimately lay with a committee of fraternity members, alumnae, and the Dean of Women. In March of 1932, this committee decided to stop pledges to sororities. There was no mention made of banning men's fraternities.

Indeed, the golden age of Men's fraternities at Swarthmore was still far from over. The October 9, 1934 Phoenix carries an item that would horrify most of today's Swarthmore students: a listing of the average GPA of each fraternity on a 3 point scale. (Honors students were assigned a GPA based on their freshmen and sophomore year grades

Notes: One of the Swarthmore fraternity chapters was thrown out of its national organization in the 1940s, when the Swarthmore chapter made strong statements disagreeing with the national organization's policy of not allowing Black Men to become members.