• Source: Pi Alpha Tau

Pi Alpha Tau (ΠΑΤ) sorority was a national, Jewish women's sorority operating in the United States between, approximately, 1917 and 1950.




History


Pi Alpha Tau sorority was established for Jewish women at Hunter College, a unit of the City University of New York. The exact founding date of the sorority is uncertain: The Oracle of Adelphi College (1937) gave the date as 1917, while the 1929 edition of The Oracle gives it as October 1918; Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities, 14th Ed., (1940), claimed 1918; a handwritten summary of the sorority, written by national president Harriet Brown, stated formation was in 1919. Regardless, Pi Alpha Tau grew slowly and steadily into a national organization.
According to the 1937 Oracle, a group of girls created the new sorority on the Hunter College campus, remarking, "Sorority life was so congenial and agreeable to these modern pioneers that their associates in other college[s] were encouraged to follow the Greek letter path." ΠΑΤ established chapters at schools in the New York City metropolitan area, soon in Albany, and by 1924 opened its first chapter outside of the state, in New Jersey.
Further expansion outside of the New York area brought chapters at Cincinnati and Wisconsin, eventually marking a total of 12 chapters, all within the US.
The Great Depression, WWII, and, ironically, gradual Jewish integration into non-Jewish national organizations took its toll: By 1950, Pi Alpha Tau ceased to operate as a national. Circumstances of its dissolution are unknown; three chapters appear to have survived into the 1950s. The two youngest chapters, Lambda at CUNY, Brooklyn and Mu at Syracuse withdrew by 1957 or earlier to operate as locals, later creating a 2-chapter sorority called Sigma Tau Delta; they opted to merge into Alpha Sigma Tau in 1960. The Alpha chapter survived as a de facto local for over a decade, still under the name Pi Alpha Tau, opting to become a chapter of Sigma Delta Tau in 1960.




= Traditions

=
According to Harriet Brown, "[The] Sorority conforms with the set rushing rules of the college but deviates in the initiation ceremonies." First, there was an informal pledge ceremony, where the "new girls" attended a party and were "allowed to submit their sorors [~sisters] to all sorts of tests." Then came the formal pledge ceremony, which lasted for six weeks "during which time the new members must submit to the wishes of the older sorors."
Initiation occurred as a "formal installation ceremony, which takes place bi-annually, in December and in May, is presided over by the President of the Grand Council of Pi Alpha Tau".
The convention formal was held annually on Christmas Eve.
The sorority's values, to be inferred from the Oracle article, were "high standards of scholarship and fraternity".




= Insignia

=
The pledge pin was a diamond divided in half horizontally into two equilateral triangles. The top half being dark colored, the bottom light colored.
The membership badge was a black enamel shield surrounded by jewels. The Greek letters, in gold, were inscribed vertically on the shield. A jewel was between the enamel and the surrounding jewel photo.




Chapter List


Baird's listed most of these chapters in the 12th ed., (1930), supplemented by information from the Baird's Manual Online Archive. There was no national merger into a successor organization, but some chapters withdrew to local status or joined another national. These are noted in bold; chapters that had gone dormant by 1950 are shown in italics.




See also


List of Jewish fraternities and sororities
Sigma Delta Tau
Alpha Sigma Tau




Notes






References






Further reading


Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities, 1940 edition.
The Oracle of Adelphi College, 1937, p. 89.
The Album of Washington Square College, 1934, p. 91.
The Badger, 1931, University of Wisconsin, p. 385.
Archival record: "Pi Alpha Tau Sorority Alpha Chapter", housed in Box 19, Folder 4, Sara Delano Roosevelt Memorial House Collection, Archives and Special Collections of the Hunter College, City University of New York. Source for Harriet Brown's historical summary, undated.
Sanua, Marianne Rachel (2003). Going Greek: Jewish College Fraternities in the United States, 1845 - 1945. Detroit; Wayne State University Press.

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