The Society
Phi Beta Kappa was founded in 1776 at the College of William and Mary. It is the oldest Greek Letter fraternity in America. At the time, members engaged in debating and literary pursuits. Later, the society was established at Harvard and Yale, and in 1875 the first women were admitted.
Membership over the years has included giants in American history such as W.E.B. Du Bois, John Marshall, Helen Keller, Eli Whitney, Booker T. Washington, and the best and the brightest from politics, law, business, science, entertainment, publishing, and education. Seventeen presidents have been members of Phi Beta Kappa. John Quincy Adams, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton were elected as undergraduates. The rest were elected as alumni or honorary members. Eleanor Roosevelt is Phi Beta Kappa’s only first lady.
Other notable members include 42 Supreme Court Justices and more than 150 Nobel Laureates. Samuel Clemens, Alexander Graham Bell, Pearl Buck, Henry Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Samuel Morse, Jonas Salk, William Henry Seward, Daniel Webster, and Eli Whitney were all members. More recent inductees include Ben Bernanke, Eileen Collins, John Updike, Condoleeza Rice, Susan Rice, Stephen Sondheim, Benazir Bhutto, Pete Buttigieg, Carson Kressley, Peyton Manning, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Amanda Gorman. Read more at the national Phi Beta Kappa site.
Alpha of Arkansas
The first Phi Beta Kappa chapter in Arkansas was chartered at the University of Arkansas in 1932. The chapter has inducted thousands of PBK members since that time. Early initiates and chapter officers included familiar campus names such as Fulbright, Futrall, Leflar, Waterman, Hotz, Holcombe, and Droke. New inductees sign their names to the same roll book as these early members. For sixty-five years, the University of Arkansas’s chapter was the only one in the state. A charter was issued for a Beta Chapter at Hendrix in 1997.
Pictured in the photo above:
First Row: Ina Kerr, Daisy Holcomb, Burnelle Boyce, Rena S. Duncan, Jobelle Holcombe, Lucille A. Long, Olive L. Mathis, ?
Second Row: Reed Sparks, J.S. Waterman, W.R. Hervey, Zilpha C. Battey, A.W. Wasson, S.A. Mitchell, George Vaughan, C.C. Fichtner (Pres.), J.C. Futrall, J.C. Jordan, G.W. Droke, D.Y. Thomas, Mary T. Anderson, H. Christine Nelson, Mary Jane Trebble, V.L. Jones, Fred L. Kerr (sec.)
Third Row: H, Hale, E. Wertheim, ? Anthony, V.H. Young, Robt. ?, D. Swartz, L.B. Hamm, H. H, Strauss (Vice-Pres.), A. Marinoni