Phi Beta Kappa Founded: America's First Scholastic Fraternity

Five students from the College of William and Mary gathered in the Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia, on December 5, 1776, to establish Phi Beta Kappa, the first scholastic fraternity in the United States. The timing was remarkable: the American Revolution was underway, British troops threatened Virginia, and the college itself would be occupied by soldiers within months. Yet these students chose to create an organization dedicated to the life of the mind. The founders established a set of principles that distinguished Phi Beta Kappa from the social clubs and drinking societies that already existed on colonial campuses. Members would be selected on the basis of intellectual achievement rather than social standing, wealth, or family connections. The society adopted a secret handshake, a motto in Greek, and a gold key as its emblem. The original William and Mary chapter was forced to suspend operations during the British occupation, but not before authorizing branches at Yale and Harvard. Those chapters survived and expanded the organization into a national network that eventually included more than 290 chapters at universities across the country. Phi Beta Kappa's insistence on academic merit as the sole criterion for membership established a lasting standard for scholarly honor societies and influenced the creation of numerous disciplinary organizations that followed the same model. Election to Phi Beta Kappa remains one of the most recognized academic distinctions in American higher education.