April 15, 1924, Volume 5, Number 7 - additional

Laura invited me to be a contributor to this blog, and I'm happy to join the party. (And not just mutter comments to a fern in the corner.) Since this is my second time through, I'll follow our hostess' lead as we waltz through history and let her set the pace. SPOILERS: coat of arms changed, second war in Europe, APX brother dives under North Pole, man walks on moon, chapters at 30+ schools.

In the chapter reports, Iktinos reports:

Our annual Greenwich Village Party was held on March 21-22, as planned. It was the best ever. The decorations were more informal than usual and the spirit of the evening reflected this informality.

This above party photo from Ann Arbor was taken in 1923 or 1924, so it may depict this very party. I'm not sure of the origins of the "Greenwich Village" name, but other issues mention the bohemian bent and artistic character of this tradition. The outrageous makeup on the participants is only rivaled by the extensive decorations that span the entire main floor of the house. Click on the picture for a larger view and marvel at the murals and other decorations.

(File the mural on the left under "(in)sensitive topics." Party over.)

Photo source:

flickr.com/photos/31303631@N00/ CC BY-NC 2.0

November 15, 1923, Vol. 5, No. 2 Part 1

Expansion: 1920's Style.

The early attempts at expansion for this fraternity seems to be dominated by brothers of a certain chapter becoming faculty at another university. The "new" chapters at USC, UVA & KSU were all initiated by faculty members who were brothers at other chapters.
At this stage in the project, less than 10 years since the foundation of the fraternity, we have faculty planted at North Dakota Agricultural College, North Carolina State College, Washington State College (that's right.. in Pullman), Harvard University, Iowa State University & New York University. However, most interesting of all are the brothers who are teaching at the University of Texas in Austin (Raymond Everett, Iktinos,), and Oklahoma A & M College (Joseph J. Patterson, Anthemios, '17).

We have the benefit of knowing that both of these chapters were established in 1925, and on page 3 of this issue, there's an indication that a chapter may be in the works at Texas. Knowing that Cass Gilbert was the master planner at this university and a Master Architect during this time period puts it all into deeper perspective.

For the Betterment...

A curious editorial on page 4 of this issue notes that many of our chapters have been planning events on the Sabbath. What's worse is, they're planning events on Saturday nights that go into the wee hours of the morning, therefore also violating the Sabbath. Tsk Tsk.
No disrespect from me, of course, for any brother or person who is observant of their particular sabbath. I would hate for anyone to sully the fair name of Alpha Rho Chi by holding events on the Sabbath. And Kudos to Mnesicles for instead holding their initiations and "oriental night" on one of the "other 6 days of the week."

oh sweet irony.

December 1, 1922, Vol. 4 No. 2 Part 2

A trip down memory lane without looking at the dark and less than pleasant things is really no different than walking down Main Street USA at Disneyland.

As much as I love Disneyland, that's not our purpose here. And unfortunately, we find ourselves, once again, with a questionable comment that in our times would be considered quite racist. I'm doing my best to try to look at it through the context of 1922, but no matter how hard I try, I can't rationalize it, and that's why I've chosen to not quote it here.

But now I find myself quite curious about how race relations played into fraternities and sororities. I have known that there were fraternities and sororities specifically for African American and Jewish students; there were a number of each on the campus of my Alma Mater. I'm not naive enough to think that fraternities and sororities weren't segregated, even in states without Jim Crow laws. I had just never thought about it until now and for the sake of this project, I decided to dig deeper.

Stupidly, I started my quest typing into my google search "racism fraternity." It was a query that returned almost 260,000 hits, most of which are undoubtedly referencing recent events.

Narrowing down my search to fraternity and race relationships, I came across this story recounted by James Vorosmarti Jr. of Lafayette College, a brother of Phi Kappa Tau.
http://www.lafayette.edu/news.php/view/10558

His story is not unlike many others I discovered; stories that tell of "gentlemen agreements" that essentially barred chapters from initiating anyone other than christian white males.

In the stories I have read thus far, an awakening among the student population that this was clearly wrong, appears to have took place in the mid-to-late 1950's. The stories tend to mirror Mr. Vorosmarti's experience where certain chapters challenge the national organization on these mandates, and often end up seceding from the national fraternity in protest.

However if this is the case, we have about 30 years of Archi's where we may stumble into pronouncements like the one here on page 4.

I dismayed to discover in the March 15, 1923 issue of the Archi, that our fraternity was not one of the organizations that maintained a racial status quo with a "gentleman's agreement". Instead, being "white male" was listed as one of the requirements for membership in our National Constitution.

Shocking.

November 1, 1922 Vol. 4, No. 1, Part 1

pep
"vigor, energy," 1912, shortened form of pepper, which was used in
the figurative sense of "spirit, energy," from at least 1847. Peppy "full of
pep," first recorded 1922. Pep rally is attested from 1945; pep talk from
1926.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

It appears "Pep" was a huge buzz-word in 1922, and the new Archi Board sure liked to use it to describe the properties of this new publications.

The new board sent a letter to all alumni asking for suggestions, and I believe the response from this unnamed brother succinctly describes why the new, peppier version was sought:

"As a suggestion, I would like to offer this, that there be less of
articles which we can get in Architectural magazines and more of a personal new
and chapter information."

And thus, aspirations to have the Archi be a periodical contribiting to our professions were put aside for a period of time. A loss for the profession? Perhaps. For us, however, Archi Names Project Gold!

In this issue we begin to hear the first rumblings of the project to build a house for the Mnesicles Chapter. Not to spoil anything, but much more will come on this subject in the future.

In other chapter house news, it looks like the Anthemios chapter moved to a different house, which would explain why I didn't recognize that photograph in the later issue. The poem included in the article specifically references a big rambling porch, which was quite distinctive. Anthemios also, is in the process of purchasing land for a future chapter house.

There are 2 brand new chapters, and it seems that the Archi Staff feels quite differently about each of them.

The Archi staff is tickled pink about those Andronicans out in Los Angeles, as they sent in many updates about students, pledges and faculty members. Most interestingly would be the mention of Carleton Monroe Winslow, made an honorary brother, who had been awarded a major project in Los Angeles, where he would be working in conjunction with Bertram Goodhue. It's a building that I enjoy visiting regularly; The Los Angeles Public Library! - see photograph above, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

However, the Kallikrates brothers are having to face the painfully polite, yet passive agressive wrath of the Archi Editors.

"From Kallikrates we have received only the most meagre news and we shall be
expecting a perfect mess of it during the next few issues. Our suggestion is that about once a week a letter with such information as may be in hand should be sent to us to make it possible to be up to date..."

As a former Grand Council member, I have to say: some things never change.

After a few more comments about how each of the new chapters are doing on dues, theres a.. lamentable comment that wouldn't be right to ignore:

"As the old darkey said on the arival of his ninth heir, "Lawd, we's thankful
for what we have received, and may's we all be blessed even moh."

Whoa. reading something like that is cause to snap a person out of their nostalgic stupor, and be grateful for living in more tolerant times.