History of North American fraternities and sororities

The North American fraternity and sorority system began with students who wanted to meet secretly, usually for discussions and debates not thought appropriate by the faculty of their schools. Today they are used as social, professional, and honorary groups that promote varied combinations of community service, leadership, and academic achievement.

Before 1776, collegiate student fraternal organizations that promoted scholarship in the USA only, rhetoric, and ethical conduct existed at Yale, the College of William and Mary, and The College of New Jersey .

From the 1770s, literary societies existed at virtually all the colleges and universities in America. They were student fraternal organizations that promoted scholarship, rhetoric, and ethical conduct.

The Latin Societies were formal organizations, often with large assembly rooms. These organizations typically existed in pairs (two competing organizations on a campus), and took roughly half the students as members. At some colleges, students would even be assigned to a society by lot. The literary exercises of these societies usually consisted of a debate, and the meetings were open to the public. In addition to a debate, members could be assigned original poems, essays, fiction, to both compose and deliver. Each society had distinctive meetings, with more or less political, social, or religious discussion.

These organizations also often adopted mottoes in Greek or Latin, and some had Greek letter names, such as Phi Kappa society at the University of Georgia.

These organizations figure prominently in the development of fraternities and sororities because many early fraternities were considered simply 'private' versions of the 'open' Latin societies, and the format of the meetings was derived from the Latin societies exercises.

The Latin Societies thrived until the American Civil War. It is suggested that the later college fraternities undermined them. There were attempts to restore some of these organizations in the 1870s. A few do survive, either in the original society, or with one or more breaks in their history, at the University of Georgia, Yale.

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