Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities

Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities is a compendium of fraternities and sororities in the United States and Canada first published in 1879. It covers national and international collegiate general (social), professional, and honor fraternities, including defunct organizations, with an overview of each society's history and traditions, ideals and symbols, and membership information. The 20th and most recent edition, published in 1991, was over 1200 pages long.

Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities
AuthorWilliam Raimond Baird, et al.
LanguageEnglish
GenreReference

More recently, the Baird's Manual Archive has been placed online through the support of the University of Illinois Library's Student Life and Culture Archives. The online archive includes the social, general fraternities and sororities, along with co-ed groups. It does not yet include the professional and honor societies, as did the print editions.

History

The reference work was compiled by William Raimond Baird (1848-1917), an 1878 graduate of the Stevens Institute of Technology. He exhaustively researched other fraternal organizations when he was seeking a suitable partner to merge with his own Alpha Sigma Chi.[1] He eventually selected Beta Theta Pi, which absorbed ΑΣΧ in 1879. As no authoritative resource on the subject existed, Baird published his research for the benefit of the public as American College Fraternities. Baird would go on to publish eight editions of the reference. He died in 1917.

The first ten editions of the book included local societies that had developed a degree of permanence, either by owning property or in being noted as part of a merger into a larger fraternity. These first ten editions also included literary societies, and even high school fraternities. In the case of local organizations, where mergers occurred, the former name would no longer appear in the book, but the continuing chapter was listed as a chapter of its new fraternity.

By the 1940s a slimmer version was published, omitting local chapters, and dropping secret societies that had been previously profiled. Soon, literary societies, class, and high school fraternities were dropped. By the 1963 edition only the National social (general) organizations, professional and honorary organizations were listed, along with shorter profiles of known defunct national groups. Postsecondary schools were also listed, with their active and inactive chapters segmented by type. This remained the format through the final print editions.

Demand for the book, and explosive growth of the American college fraternity system prompted others to continue the work after Baird's death. A total of twenty editions were published between 1879 and 1991. As the successor to Baird, the NIC and Beta Theta Pi held the rights for some time before selling them to George Banta, publisher of Banta's Greek Exchange. The Banta Publishing Company of Menasha, Wisconsin released several editions before spinning the publication off to the Baird's Manual Foundation, which published editions in 1977 and 1991 under editors Jack Anson of Phi Kappa Tau and Robert F. Marchesani, Jr., of Phi Kappa Psi.[2]

The 1991 edition (20th) was the last print edition.

Since 1991 the archives have been expanded by the work of Carroll Lurding of Delta Upsilon fraternity, who for decades researched the local groups which were absorbed by national organizations as new chapters or as national mergers. Through this effort he has also kept track of changes that have occurred in the fraternity and sorority world, using publications available at the University of Illinois Library's Student Life & Culture Archives, Indiana University's Lurding Collection of Fraternity Material at the Lilly Library, and the New York Public Library's Baird Collection.[3] The resultant "Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities" (Baird's Manual online archive) is available to the public, and is curated by a group of professional researchers, updated regularly. The archive's present lead editor is Mr. Carroll Lurding.[4]

Editions
  1. 1879, William Baird, ed.
  2. 1880, William Baird, ed.
  3. 1883, William Baird, ed.
  4. 1890, William Baird, ed.
  5. 1898, William Baird, ed.
  6. 1905, William Baird, ed.
  7. 1912, William Baird, ed.
  8. 1915, William Baird, ed.
  9. 1920, James T. Brown, ed.
  10. 1923, James T. Brown, ed.
  11. 1927, Francis Wayland Shepardson, ed.
  12. 1930, Francis Wayland Shepardson, ed.
  13. 1935, Francis Wayland Shepardson, ed.
  14. 1940, Alvan E. Duerr, ed.
  15. 1949, Harold J. Baily, ed.
  16. 1957, George Starr Lasher, ed.[5]
  17. 1963, John Robson, ed.
  18. 1968, John Robson, ed.
  19. 1977, John Robson, ed.
  20. 1991, Jack L. Anson, Robert F. Marchesani, Jr., eds., ISBN 0-9637159-0-9
  21. Online, Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities (Baird's Manual Archive Online), Carroll Lurding, ed.

References
  1. UMaine Beta History
  2. The early history of Baird's Manual is noted in a blog post by Christopher Walters, posted on the blog "Fraternity History & More", on March 6, 2013, accessed 31 Jan 2021.
  3. Historian Fran Becque PhD wrote extensively about the online archive on her blog, "Fraternity History & More", on January 31, 2021, accessed 31 Jan 2021.
  4. Fran Becque, PhD, at the blogsite fraternityhistory.com is one of several archivists on the committee that supports this project. She is the national historian for Pi Beta Phi.
  5. The Rattle of Theta Chi. Theta Chi Fraternity Inc. 1962. pp. 29–. UOM:39015080240420.
Edits and submissions for the online archive may be sent to the archivist listed on the website, or to the editorial committee at Fraternity-Sorority Almanac Submission and Correction form
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