Gamma Delta Chi
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Gamma Delta Chi is a local fraternity at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. While the history of Gamma Delta Chi has its real beginning in 1907, with the founding of Gamma Delta Epsilon, which in 1928 obtained a national charter from Phi Kappa Sigma, the details of the organization of the fraternity in its present form tae us back only to the early thirties. The opening move started with the Dartmouth Chapter of Alpha Chi Rho which had been founded as a local in 1915 under the name Epsilon Kappa Alpha and had become a national fraternity in 1918.
In 1934, Alpha Chi Rho was faced with an inadequate house on College Street and an attractive offer for the purchase of its entire property by the Church of Christ whose building on the campus had been destroyed by fire. The fraternity had agreed to sell its property to the Church if another suitable lot could be found upon which it could build a new fraternity house. For a year, its search for a lot was fruitless and the patience of the church group was wearing thin. Finally, the fraternity, in order not to lose the opportunity, sold its property to the church, rented a house, banked its money, and continued the search for a building lot.
Early in 1935, while the Alpha Chi Rho men were canvassing the lot situation, it became known to them that the Dartmouth Chapter of Phi Kappa Sigma was faced with a somewhat similar problem. The latter owned, free and clear, a valuable lot and an old and inadequate house on North Main Street, the location of the present house.
The Alpha Chi Rho group broached the subject of a sale of the rear portion of the Phi Kappa Sigma lot ad in the course of the discussion a proposal for the merger of the two chapters was made. This happy idea was broached without dissent; the plan was carried through in the spring of 1935. The new fraternity was born without ties to the two national fraternities and the incorportation of the new Gamma Delta Chi delayed complete fruition of the merger until the fall of that year.
The wisdom of the decision to form a local fraternity and to cut the national ties received substantial vindication when in the spring of the following year, the Committee appointed by the President to survey the social life of the college issued its report, the majority of the Committee recommending that Dartmouth fraternities sever all national affiliations and become local clubs.
Plans were immediately commenced for the building of a new fraternity house on the former Phi Kappa property on North main Street. A study was made of all existing fraternity houses on campus and of fraternity houses in other college towns. Questionnaires were sent to all members of the new fraternity. College officers and students, as well as were members of the fraternity who had training and experience in architecture and building. Numerous plans were drawn, studied, and revised. Ground was finally broken and the building commenced in September 1937.
In the meantime, a campaign for funds had been launched, negotiations for a mortgage completed, property titles cleared and transferred, funds consolidated, the many affairs of the new fraternity organized, and the News Letter started on its periodic circulation among members. It was a busy period for the innumerable alumni and undergraduate members who gave unstintingly for what Dartmouth men dedicated to the improvement of the social life of the College and the interests and welfare of its members.
It was during this same hectic period that the alumni members of the Dartmouth Chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha, a fraternity, whose undergraduates had disbanded some years before, became interested in the new fraternity. Discussions commenced and finally culminated in August 1936 with the merger of the Lambda Chi Alpha group with Gamma Delta Chi. Their contribution included not only a strong group of interested alumni, but also substantial funds which, added to the common fund, helped make possible the erection of the house.
The roster was not yet complete. The next and final accretion was born out of tragedy. A fateful fire destroyed the Alpha Sigma Phi house further up North Main Street leaving the chapter homeless and without sufficient funds to build anew. The new Dartmouth fraternity idea interested alumni and undergraduates alike and, in December 1936, this group also relinquished its national charter, as had the other groups, and became a part of Gamma Delta Chi.
Gamma Delta Chi was thus born of several fortuitous circumstances. At about the same time, four groups found themselves either without an adequate house or without any house, or without funds or without an undergraduate chapter. Their national affiliations had offered them no substantial help in extrication themselves from their difficulties and the idea of a strictly Dartmouth fraternity appealed to them. Almost without a dissenting voice, thse alumni and undergraduates joined forces enthusiastically to create a new and independent fraternity.
It will be seen that one point of real significance in this brief history is that Gamma Delta Chi broke with the national tradition, that it made itself free to mold its organization, aims, and objectives to the needs of the College and its members, and that it placed itself in a position to be a leader in the revitalizing of fraternities to the end that they might respond to the requirement that they make a worthwhile contribution to the social life of the College. Its constitution, by-laws, and membership requirements are of its own making, unfettered by the restrictions of any national organization. Its funds and its property are its own to be used for its own purpose as it sees fit. its programs, activities, and purposes are likewise uninhibited. Gamma Delta Chi is a crusading fraternity; this is its heritage and the significance of its history.
