The History of Phi Beta Kappa

On December 5, 1776, meeting at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, VA, five undergraduates of the College of William and Mary decided to form a secret society with an academic focus. The name of their group was the Society of Philosophy or Societas Philosophiae, to which they added a motto in Greek, Philosophiae Biou Kubernetes, abbreviated Phi Beta Kappa. The motto may be translated as “Wisdom, the helmsman or guide of life.” They chose Greek for their motto likely because one of the five was the best student in Greek at the College and because Latin was already used for other literary societies. Thus, the use of Greek was distinctive. The motto soon took priority, and the group became known as the Phi Beta Kappa society.

Friendship among members was an important characteristic of the group, and “Fraternity, Morality, and Literature” were their principles. Meetings included debate of the current issues of the day, with two members assigned to opposite sites of each issue. The topics included: “The cause and origin of Society”; “Whether anything is more dangerous to Civile Liberty in a Free State than a standing army in time of Peace”; “The justice of African slavery”; “Whether Theatrical Exhibitions are advantageous to States or ye Contrary”; “Whether Brutus was Justifyable in Killing Caesar”; and “Whether a general Assessment for the support of Religious Establishments is repugnant to the Principle of a Republican Government.” These issues set the philosophical tone of the society.

Phi Beta Kappa at William and Mary closed four years later during the turbulence of the American revolution, but before doing so, new chapters were chartered at Harvard and Yale, and gradually additional chapters were added through the efforts of these two northern chapters. Important changes took place in Phi Beta Kappa during the 1800’s. With the development on campuses of additional Greek-letter private societies, Phi Beta Kappa emphasized its academic focus and evolved into an honorary society (the other societies emphasized their social focus). Secrecy was gradually dropped as well, so that by the 1880’s, Phi Beta Kappa was an entirely open, honorary society that recognized academic excellence. And without any fuss, as women began to participate in higher education, they were elected as members, too, the first at the University of Vermont in 1875. Taken together, these changes produced the form of the society we know today. Many other honorary societies have formed since then, using Phi Beta Kappa as a model, but in the U.S. today, election to Phi Beta Kappa remains the original and best known indicator of academic excellence.

Listed below are some well-known members of Phi Beta Kappa (and their chapters and class years):

• John Marshall, chief Justice of the Supreme Court (William and Mary, 1780);
• John Quincy Adams, President of the U.S. (Harvard, 1787);
• Daniel Webster, statesman (Dartmouth, 1801);
• Horace Mann, educator, father of American education (Brown, 1819);
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist (Harvard, 1821);
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, author (Bowdoin, 1824);
• Henry W. Longfellow, poet (Bowdoin, 1825);
• Woodrow Wilson, President of the U.S. (Princeton, 1879);
• Theodore Roosevelt, President of the U.S. (Harvard, 1880);
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the U.S. (Harvard, 1903);
• Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, Vice President of the U.S. (Dartmouth, 1930);
• Jonas Salk, physician, developer of polio vaccine  (CCNY, 1930's);
• Leonard Bernstein, composer and conductor (Harvard, 1939);
• George H.W. Bush, President of the U.S. (Yale, 1948);
• William Rehnquist, Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court (Stanford, 1948);
• Marv Levy, coach, NFL Buffalo Bills (Coe College, 1950);
• Stephen Sondheim, composer-lyricist  (Williams, ~1952);
• John Updike, author  (Harvard, 1954);
• Gloria Steinem, journalist and feminist (Smith, 1956);
• Elizabeth Dole, North Carolina senator, former President of the American Red Cross  (Duke, 1958);
• Francis Ford Coppola, movie producer and director (Hofstra, 1959);
• Bill Clinton, President of the U.S. (Georgetown, 1968);
• Hillary Clinton, Senator from New York (Wellesley, 1969);
• Glenn Close, actress (William & Mary, ~1970);
• Condoleezza Rice, U.S. National Security Advisor; former provost, Stanford Univ. (Univ. Denver, 1974).