In 1837, The Methodist Church established Indiana Asbury (now DePauw University) in Greencastle, Indiana. Asbury opened its doors to women in 1867, but not without contempt from its male students. It was not easy for these pioneer women to fit in and make friends, so it was no surprise that it took a strong individial, like Betty Locke Hamilton, and her three friends, to change history.

It took Bettie Locke (Hamilton), Alice Allen (Brant), Hannah Fitch (Shaw), and Bettie Tipton (Lindsey) three years to create Kappa Alpha Theta. On January 27, 1870, Kappa Alpha Theta became the first Greek letter Fraternity known among women. These incredible individuals wished to have an organization that would provide the encouragement and support that would draw women to co-educational colleges and help them attain a degree.

Locke based the organization on her knowledge of her father's fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, and her brother's fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta. Members of her brother's fraternity offered to let her wear their badges, but she declined, saying that she would not wear it without knowing the secrets the letters represented. Locke and her three friends performed the initiation ceremony on one another, making them official Thetas.

These four women proudly wore their black and gold badges to Asbury's chapel service on March 14. The Alpha chapter at Asbury grew to 22 sisters. Soon, Theta spread to other colleges, and the establishment of the Beta chapter at Indiana University took place in May of the same year. Today, there are over 125 collegiate chapters of Kappa Alpha Theta in the United States and Canada, with over 170,000 active members, upholding its place as one of the strongest national and international fraternities.


THETA FIRSTS:

• The first women admitted to Phi Beta Kappa were Thetas.
• The first women's fraternity to establish a chapter in Canada was Kappa Alpha Theta.
• Nancy Kassebaum, Kappa/Kansas, was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate who had not succeeded her husband or first been appointed to fill an unexpired term.
• Theta was the first women's Greek organization established at four Ivy League schools (Cornell, Princeton, Yale, and Harvard), as well as Michigan, Vanderbilt, Baylor, and Stanford universities.