St. Anthony Hall


St. Anthony Hall is an American fraternity and literary society. Its 11 active chapters go by different names on different campuses, including Saint Anthony Hall, The Order of St. Anthony, the Fraternity of Delta Psi, St. A's, the Hall and the Number Six Club. Its first chapter was founded at Columbia University on January 17, 1847, the feast day of St. Anthony.
As of 2016, nearly all chapters of St. Anthony Hall have gone co-ed; only three remain all-male. At both the University of North Carolina and Ole Miss, St. Anthony Hall was the first campus fraternity to admit African-American members, in 1967 at the University of North Carolina. The chapter at Yale University was, in 1961, the first chapter of the fraternity as well as the second society on campus to admit a person of color, and would later also be the first to admit women, in 1971.
In 1879, Baird's Manual characterized the fraternity as having "the reputation of being the most secret of all the college societies." References to St. Anthony Hall have appeared in the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald, John O'Hara, and Tom Wolfe.

History and chapters

In 1847, after the fraternity's Alpha chapter was founded at Columbia University, a Beta chapter at New York University was formed; in 1853, the two had united. By 1879, Columbia College's Record listed the NYU founders alongside its own students.
The currently chartered chapters of St. Anthony Hall are:
Many of St. Anthony Hall's chapter houses are referred to colloquially as "The Hall" or "St. A's", although at MIT, the society is known as "The Number Six Club" in reference to that chapter's original residence at No. 6 Louisburg Square in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood. According to its national website, St. Anthony Hall originally began in 1847 as a "fraternity dedicated to the love of education and the well-being of its members."
Chapters were then founded throughout the Northeast, and extended into the South during the mid-19th century. During the Civil War, however, formal contact ended between Northern and Southern chapters, though contact was restored between remaining and refounded chapters after the War.
The fraternity's history states that "many members wore their badges into battle, serving with distinction on both sides, and were often reunited in both pleasant and antagonistic situations throughout the war".
Because their patron is often depicted with a Tau Cross, the symbol has been used to embellish the architecture of some St. A's chapter houses.

Membership

Yale began admitting women in 1969 and St. A's became the earliest Yale society to accept women as members that same year. St. A's occupies a unique status at Yale. It resembles a "senior society" in that its senior members are precluded from joining another senior society; however, it is unique in that it is a three-year society, admitting members during their sophomore year. Some other Yale societies would later also transition to co-ed membership, such as Skull and Bones in 1992.
It thus had a two-year advantage over the purely senior societies in admitting female members. The Yale chapter's action also accomplished, albeit not without friction, co-education as a permitted status within the national fraternity. Charlie Scott, a member of St. A's at the University of North Carolina became the first person of color to pledge any fraternity at that campus, in 1967.
Student St. A's members at various chapters pursue their literary mandate through different programs. The Columbia, University of North Carolina, and Brown University chapters have published poetry journals. Also at the University of North Carolina, the chapter hosts events open to the community such as "Poetry, Prose and Pancakes." The Brown University chapter publishes a literary and visual arts magazine, also available online, called "The Sketchbook."
The Trinity College chapter endows a St. Anthony Professorship in Art History, several annual prizes for Trinity students, and an annual public lecture, named for Martin W. Clement.
Yale's chapter sponsors a public series of lectures every two to three weeks on literature, poetry, art and current affairs in general. It is compared to but more generalized than the annual Maynard Mack Lecture of Yale's Elizabethan Club, down the block, whose sessions with actors and directors focus on Shakespeare's era. The Yale St. Anthony Hall lectures, some co-sponsored with the Yale Review recently have included Gay Talese, D. A. Powell, Tom Perotta, Ilya Kaminsky, Tao Lin, Dave Eggers, Roddy Lumsden, Elizabeth Bear, Vona Groarke, Conor O'Callaghan, John Guare, Claire Messud, Elizabeth Alexander, William Deresiewicz, Richard Wilbur, Henri Cole, Chris Adrian, Heidi Julavits, Joseph Harrison, Mark Strand, Wayne Koestenbaum, Dana Levin, Irving Feldman, John Butler, Maurice Manning, Peter Orszag, Michael Donaghy, Paul Muldoon, Martin Puryear, Robert Young Pelton, Rosa DeLauro, Donald Kagan, Bhagavan Das, Robert Stone, Peter Matthiessen, Agha Shahid Ali, Richard Selzer, Naomi Wolf, Carl Andre, Richard Haas, Robert P. De Vecchi, Thomas Fingar, Larry Kramer, Frank Deford, Paul Kennedy, Louise Glück, Henri Cole, Andrew Solomon and Christo.
The University of Pennsylvania Delta chapter also hosts an annual lecture series that has recently included guests such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Joseph Rishel, Brian Tierney, a Delta chapter member and the current publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Tom Wolfe also made an impromptu appearance while conducting research for his book "I am Charlotte Simmons."

St. Anthony Hall chapter houses

The majority of St. Anthony Hall chapters still own the Victorian, Gilded Age, Art Deco, and Beaux Arts chapter houses some of its socially prominent members commissioned from well-known 19th century and early 20th century architects. One of the buildings, at Yale,, when donated by Frederick William Vanderbilt in 1913, was described by the New York Times as "the most expensive and elaborate secret society building in the United States". In accordance with the respective traditions of each chapter, St. A's is now self-described and referred to on different campuses as a fraternity, a literary society, a secret society, or a private club.

St. Anthony Hall buildings

Described and pictured in George E. Nitzsche's 1918 book,University of Pennsylvania: Its History, Traditions, Buildings and Memorials: Also a Brief Guide to Philadelphia
The former Delta Psi fraternity at the University of Vermont was always unrelated.
In 1879, Baird's Manual, contained an extensive Delta Psi/St. Anthony Hall chapter list. Baird's characterized the organization, at that time, as having "the reputation of being the most secret of all the college societies."
Chapters at the end of the 19th century were:
Baird's 1999 edition amends the last listing for Washington and Lee as Beta.
The 1999 edition of Baird's appeared unaware of the re-founding of Theta, erroneously listing that as Theta's last year. Baird's text also noted information regarding the effects of the Civil War –- then, just forty years past —- on the Order, and contemporary references to several of the fraternity chapter buildings that still exist today: "The Beta chapter was declared extinct in 1853, and its members affiliated with the Alpha. The Gamma and Theta disbanded. The Alpha has a fine chapter house in East Twenty-eighth Street, New York City.
The Epsilon has one of the most expensive chapter houses in the country, $40,000 having been given for that purpose by one of the members. The Kappa chapter had been repudiated by the fraternity by 1855, but its official existence was recognized in the catalogue draft of 1876. The Southern chapters were closed by the war, and only the Phi and Upsilon were revived at its close. The Lambda owns a chapter house, and the Iota and one or two others have building funds."

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