St. Anthony Hall

St. Anthony Hall, The Fraternity of Delta Psi
ΔΨ
Founded January 17, 1847 (1847-01-17)
Columbia University
Type Literary and Social
Scope National
Colors Azure Blue and Old Gold          
Publication The Review
Chapters 11
Members 400+ collegiate
30,000+ lifetime
Headquarters P. O. Box 4633
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
Homepage St. Anthony Hall National Website

St. Anthony Hall is a national college literary society at elite colleges in the United States of America. The society's chapters go by different names on different campuses, including Saint Anthony Hall, The Order of St. Anthony, the Fraternity of Delta Psi (ΔΨ), St. A's, the Hall and the Number Six Club. St. Anthony Hall's activities foster the social and intellectual development of its undergraduate members by encouraging individual expression and promoting the exchange of ideas by providing a forum for discussion and presentations. The first, or 'Alpha' Chapter was founded at Columbia University on January 17, 1847, which is the feast day of St. Anthony. As of 2015, there are 11 active undergraduate chapters—several have a public literary and arts presence, some resemble traditional campus fraternities, while others are purely secret societies. The organization welcomes this diversity, while allowing each chapter to determine its own identity and membership requirements. Since 1969, five previously all-male chapters have opened to women, three 19th century chapters have been refounded as co-ed, and three chapters have remained all-male—the latter group still recognizing the authority of female national officers. St Anthony Hall was the first formerly white fraternity at both the University of North Carolina (1967)[1] and the University of Mississippi to admit African American members.

In 1879, Baird's Manual characterized the organization as having "the reputation of being the most secret of all the college societies." References appear in several F. Scott Fitzgerald short stories and Tom Wolfe's novels.[2] The Order has a distinguished architectural inheritance.

History and chapters

circa 1873 symbol[3] from the University of Pennsylvania Record undergraduate yearbook

In 1847, after the organization's 'Alpha' Chapter was founded on January 17 at Columbia University, a 'Beta' Chapter at New York University was also founded, but by 1853 had been 'united' with the Alpha.[4] By 1879, Columbia College's Record listed the NYU founders alongside its own Columbia students.[5]

The currently chartered chapters of St. Anthony Hall include:

At some universities, the Order of St. Anthony maintains a chapter house colloquially referred to as "The Hall" or "St. A's", although at MIT, the society is known as "The Number Six Club" in reference to that chapter's original founding and residence at No. 6 Louisburg Square in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood. According to its national website, St. Anthony Hall originally began as a "fraternity dedicated to the love of education and the well-being of its members." Chapters were founded throughout the Northeast, and extended into the South during the mid-19th century. During the Civil War, formal contact ended between Northern and Southern chapters, though contact was restored between remaining and refounded chapters after the War.

The Order's history states that "many members wore their badges into battle, serving with distinction on both sides, and were often reunited in both pleasant and antagonistic situations throughout the war".

Because their patron, Anthony of Egypt is often depicted with his Tau Cross, the symbol has been used to embellish the architecture of some St. A's chapter houses. St. Anthony also became a swineherd, hence Hall members sentimentally regard the pig, one of the Saint's 'attributes', as an informal mascot. However the fraternity has never had any religious affiliation; the inspiration provided by this ascetic saint (and his pig) is solely thematic.

As a hermit and founder of monasticism, Anthony is identified with the "book of nature" and not writing. St. Anthony was the focus of a Roman Catholic Hospital Order which flourished from the 13th to 18th centuries and was responsible for treating the effects of ergot poisoning or St. Anthony's Fire. Today's Alpha chapter is decorated with prints of "The Temptation of St. Anthony" as well as the mythic symbol the "Owl of Minerva".

Membership

Yale began admitting women in 1969 and St. A's became the earliest Yale society to accept women as members that same year. St. A's occupies an odd status at Yale. It resembles a "senior society" (see List of Yale University student organizations) in that its senior members are precluded from joining a senior society; however, it is unique in that it is a three-year society, admitting members during their sophomore year. See also secret society. It thus had a two-year advantage over the purely senior societies in admitting female members. The Yale chapter's action also accomplished, albeit not without friction, co-education as a permitted status within the national fraternity. Charlie Scott, a member of St. A's at the University of North Carolina became the first person of color to pledge any fraternity at that campus, in 1967.[7]

Activities

Student St. A's members at various chapters pursue their literary mandate through different programs. The Columbia, University of North Carolina, and Brown University chapters have published poetry journals. Also at the University of North Carolina, the chapter hosts events open to the community such as "Poetry, Prose and Pancakes" and "Haiku Kung Fu". The Brown University Chapter publishes a literary and visual arts magazine, also available online, called "The Sketchbook."

The Trinity College chapter endows a St. Anthony Professorship in Art History, several annual prizes for Trinity students, and an annual public lecture, named for Martin W. Clement (Class of 1901). Yale's chapter sponsors a public series of lectures every two to three weeks on literature, poetry, art and current affairs in general. (It is compared to but more generalized than the annual Maynard Mack Lecture of Yale's Elizabethan Club, down the block, whose sessions with actors and directors focus on Shakespeare's era.) The Yale St. Anthony Hall lectures, some co-sponsored with the Yale Review recently have included Gay Talese, D. A. Powell, Tom Perotta, Ilya Kaminsky, Tao Lin, Dave Eggers, Roddy Lumsden, Elizabeth Bear, Vona Groarke, Conor O'Callaghan, John Guare, Claire Messud, Elizabeth Alexander, William Deresiewicz, Richard Wilbur, Henri Cole, Chris Adrian, Heidi Julavits, Joseph Harrison, Mark Strand, Wayne Koestenbaum, Dana Levin, Irving Feldman, John Butler, Maurice Manning, Peter Orszag, Michael Donaghy, Paul Muldoon, Martin Puryear, Robert Young Pelton, Rosa DeLauro, Donald Kagan, Bhagavan Das, Robert Stone, Peter Matthiessen, Agha Shahid Ali, Richard Selzer, Naomi Wolf, Carl Andre, Richard Haas, Robert P. De Vecchi, Thomas Fingar, Larry Kramer, Frank Deford, Paul Kennedy, Louise Glück, Henri Cole, Andrew Solomon and Christo.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] The University of Pennsylvania Delta Chapter also hosts an annual lecture series that has recently included guests such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,[18] Joseph Rishel,[19] Brian Tierney,[20] a Delta Chapter member and the current publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and journalist Tucker Carlson.[21] Tom Wolfe also made an impromptu appearance while conducting research for his book "I am Charlotte Simmons."[22]

St. Anthony Hall Chapter Houses

The majority of St. Anthony Hall chapters still own the Victorian, Gilded Age, Art Deco, and Beaux Arts chapter houses some of its socially prominent members commissioned from well-known 19th century and early 20th century architects. One of the buildings, at Yale, (its third on that campus), when donated by Frederick William Vanderbilt in 1913, was described by the New York Times as "the most expensive and elaborate secret society building in the United States".[23] In accordance with the respective traditions of each chapter, St. A's is now self-described and referred to on different campuses as a fraternity (or co-ed fraternity), a literary society, a secret society, or a private club.

Hornbostel, circa 1899: Alpha Chapter, New York
Heins & LaFarge, 1894–1913, Sigma Chapter, without dormitory wing, New Haven
Heins & LaFarge, 1894–1913, with later-added dormitory, New Haven. Old York Hall (now Stoeckel Hall) also visible.
Renwick, 1879: Original Alpha Chapter House, Columbia University, when located in downtown NYC. (Now a restaurant/apartment bldg.)
Stone, Carpenter & Willson, 1895, Kappa Chapter, Brown University, Providence
Gage, 1902–1904: former St. Anthony Club, New York
Breuer, 1970, showing St. Anthony 'Tau Cross' motif, commissioned by St. A's member Henry P. Becton
J.C. Cady, 1878: Epsilon Chapter, Trinity College.

St. Anthony Hall Buildings

Described and pictured in George E. Nitzsche's 1918 book,University of Pennsylvania: Its History, Traditions, Buildings and Memorials: Also a Brief Guide to Philadelphia (International Printing Company, 1918)[29]

Related Non-Hall Campus Buildings

Exclusions and Obsolete Chapters

The former Delta Psi Fraternity at the University of Vermont (1850-2004) was always unrelated[50]

In 1879, Baird's Manual (see Wikisource, the free library of source texts.[51]), contained an extensive Delta Psi/St. Anthony Hall chapter list. Baird's characterized the organization, at that time, as having "the reputation of being the most secret of all the college societies."

Chapters at the end of the 19th century were:

Baird's 1999 edition amends the last listing for Washington and Lee as Beta (defunct).

The 1999 edition of Baird's appeared unaware of the re-founding of Theta, erroneously listing that as Theta's last year.

Baird's text also noted information regarding the effects of the Civil War –- then, just forty years past —- on the Order, and contemporary references to several of the fraternity chapter buildings that still exist today: "The Beta Chapter was declared extinct in 1853, and its members affiliated with the Alpha. The Gamma and Theta disbanded. The Alpha has a fine chapter house in East Twenty-eighth Street, New York City.[24] The Epsilon has one of the most expensive chapter houses in the country,[54] $40,000 having been given for that purpose by one of the members. The Kappa Chapter is generally repudiated by the fraternity, but its official existence was recognized in the catalogue draft of 1876. The Southern Chapters were closed by the war, and only the Phi and Upsilon were revived at its close. The Lambda owns a chapter house,[55] and the Iota and one or two others have building funds." (1879 text, from Wikisource.)

In popular culture

See also

Further reading

References

  1. "FRATERNITY PLEDGES NEGRO AT CAROLINA". select.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  2. "Daily Pennsylvanian".
  3. http://www.archives.upenn.edu/primdocs/upm/upm7100/1873record.pdf
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  5. The undergraduate record: Columbia ... – Google Books. Google Books. October 6, 2006. Retrieved October 17, 2011.
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  19. "http://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/news/2009/04/17/News/Political.Journalist.Tucker.Carlson.Discusses.Obama.And.The.Economy-3714694.shtml". External link in |title= (help)
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  43. Archived February 16, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
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  46. "Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities: Information from". Answers.com. Retrieved October 17, 2011.
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  50. Archived March 5, 2005, at the Wayback Machine.
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  52. Yale Alumni Publications, Inc. "Yale Alumni Magazine website". Yalealumnimagazine.com. Retrieved October 17, 2011.
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External links

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