Theta Upsilon
Defunct American collegiate women's fraternity
Theta Upsilon (ΘΥ) was a national women's fraternity operating in the United States from February 1921 until May 1962, when the group was absorbed by the Delta Zeta sorority.
History
Local club
Theta Upsilon began as a local club at the University of California, Berkeley when six female students moved into a house on Walnut Street. The house became known as "The Walnut Shell".
In the academic year of 1913–1914, twelve girls organized an official "house club" under the university. It was called Mekatina, which meant "Among the Hills". Mekatina had a ritual based on Native American themes. The pin was a rising sun. The formal founding date, according to Delta Zeta's history, was January 1, 1914.
National fraternity
On February 7, 1921, the Mekatina students renamed themselves inaugural members of the Alpha chapter of Theta Upsilon. Ida Shaw Martin, of the Sorority Service Bureau, is credited with outlining the plans for Theta Upsilon and perfecting its ritual.
“Theta Upsilon” enters the record as defunct American collegiate women's fraternity. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Theta, Upsilon and Defunct can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Theta Upsilon” 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.