North American fraternity and sorority housing
student housing/clubs, in particular in North America
North American fraternity and sorority housing refers largely to the houses or housing areas in which fraternity and sorority members live and work together. In addition to serving as housing, fraternity and sorority housing may also serve to host social gatherings, meetings, and functions that benefit the community.
History
The first fraternity house seems to have been located at Alpha Epsilon of Chi Psi at the University of Michigan around 1846. As fraternity membership was punishable by expulsion at many colleges at this time, the house, "an abandoned log hut" was located deep in the woods.
Fraternity chapter housing initially existed in two forms: lodges that served as meeting rooms and houses that had boarding rooms. The lodges came first and were largely replaced by houses with living accommodations. Lodges were often no more than rented rooms above stores or taverns. The idea of substantial fraternity housing caught on quickly, but was accomplished with much greater ease in the North as southern college students had far less available money for construction.
The first fraternity house in the South was likely one rented by members of Beta Theta Pi at Hampden–Sydney College from at least 1856. Alpha Tau Omega was then the first fraternity to own a house in the South when, in 1880, its chapter at The University of the South acquired one.
The public source identifies “North American fraternity and sorority housing” as student housing/clubs, in particular in North America. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around North, American and fraternity.
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This entry incorporates text from “North American fraternity and sorority housing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.