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Eta
,→The Early Years
==The Early Years==
A University of Wisconsin student, Juliet Meyer (Brown), received a letter from a Kappa Kappa Gamma member at Indiana University in the fall of 1874, inviting her to form a Chapter at Wisconsin. Juliet’s name had been selected from the university catalog, and she casually chose roommates and dormitory neighbors as Chapter mates.It happened that, of the eight girls occupying two suites of rooms in the dormitory, two were seniors and six were juniors.
This was the first year that women had been officially integrated at Wisconsin. There were two men’s fraternities, none for women, and faculty attitudes were reputedly hostile.For this reason, the organization of Eta was secretly performed by correspondence. After considerable correspondence, Juliet and her seven friends signed the constitution and oath of initiation, which had been received in cipher, and the chapter . The Chapter was established on February 2, 1875, by the Grand Chapter.The first pledge was Mary Hill. She was relieved when the key to the cipher arrived, and wrote “great relief was felt when the really harmless nature of the dark deed was revealed to the founders of Eta.”
From the beginning, regular meetings were held in the private rooms of members, and literary exercises were always a part of the program. Informal spreads, guarded with secrecy and mystery, occasionally took place in some bedroom reached through a parlor that acted as a buffer between the festive rites and inquisitive teachers and fellow students. It was not until the golden keys appeared that it began to be rumored that a secret society had been organized. Indignation was great in some quarters.
