The History of Lamplighting and Initiation

The culmination of Delta Zeta's New Member Program, which today we know as Lamplighting, began sometime in the early 1960s. No one is sure where or when someone's wonderful idea for ending a new member's pledgeship evolved into the entity it has become today.

By the early 1970s Lamplighting had become a week-long period of deep meaning to both the new and already-initiated members and served to bring each chapter closer. Special ceremonies, activities, meals and sisterhood events began to characterize this period and prepared the chapter for our special and meaningful initiation.

In the course of time, several ceremonies and activities came to be universally associated with Lamplighting nationwide. Chapters often shared ideas and innovations which helped make this time the most special in the new member period. Eventually, the duration of Lamplighting became today's one to three day period. This special time in a Delta Zeta member's life is still evolving, and every new member is a part of the process!

The Evolution of Our Initiation Service
Can you picture turn of the century Miami University where six fashionable coeds set about to create the Delta Zeta Ritual? Do you think our Founders had any idea the impact of their actions and efforts would have in the lives of so many women? Just imagine the following.

Julia Bishop, being somewhat literary was chosen to do most of the writing of the ritual, and Anna Keen, being secretary, had a great deal to do with the insignia. There were so many things to discuss and decide that the six girls bent upon a momentous mission felt that they didn't have the sufficient time or privacy to get together. All girls ate together in the Commons and each paid the huge sum of two dollars a week for this privilege.

When the six Founders asked if they couldn't please eat in a little private dining room off the main dining room, they were gladly told it would cost each of them fifty cents a week extra. They gladly paid this amount for the privilege of being alone.

Finally the Ritual was completed. The girls went to the notary and signified that their "intentions were honorable." The Ritual was sent to the state to be printed. Then daily, the eager girls took the mile walk to the post office to see if it had come back in printed form. The day it came back in a long, important looking parcel, Anna Keen dashed to the campus waving it in the air and calling out to the others, "It's come! It's come!"

The thrill of that moment when the Ritual was actually in their hands in printed form has never been forgotten by the Founders. They sat right down and read, in trembling joy, every word of the beautiful Ritual, the product of their own work and imagination.

(Reprinted from the July 1, 1936 issue of The Lampkin. Reprinted a second time from the July 5, 2002 issue of The Lampkin.)

Our six Founders were very thorough in their setting up of our sorority. Before the announcement was made of the new organization, they even then knew that the secret of success was finding new members. Their first pledge was Elizabeth Coulter Α, an editor of the campus newspaper.

The Delta Zeta initiation ritual has changed very little over the years, even though Elizabeth, who later became a National President, insisted there were parts of her initiation that were made to accommodate the needs of developing chapters and times. Our Founders quickly did away with the buffoonery so common to fraternities in those days and wanted their initiations dignified and moving, definitely the feminine touch.

At the time of the joining of Alpha Chapter with Phi Tau, the Delta Zeta girls tearfully burned their Ritual and destroyed most of the secret properties they had cherished. With the reactivation of Alpha Chapter in 1907, the Ritual was rewritten from memory by the older alumnae. Bearing certain resemblances to the original services, the second Ritual was consciously made different from the first.

As new chapters were added, it was Alpha Chapter's responsibility to pass on the Ritual and Constitution. This was done by the simple process of copying these documents by hand. Even today, the Ritual is not commercially printed, but done in our own offices, each folder carefully numbered and listed to the chapter.

In the early days of these handwritten Constitutions, the initiates actually did not only sign the Constitution but had to listen to its entire reading before they received their pins.

Despite the fact that each new chapter did receive a copy of Alpha's Ritual, minor differences in interpretation crept in, so that visitors from chapter to chapter would remark that was "not the way we did it." All of these interpretations were taken into consideration when Council appointed a Ritual Committee in 1925 and then sent a standard version to all chapters.

This edition included the official pledge service. Delta Chapter at DePauw had been the first to use a formal pledge service, and when Julia Bishop Coleman Α and Grace Mason Ε went to Kentucky to install Alpha Theta Chapter, they used a version of this which Julia had written for the occasion. It was so well received that other chapters asked for it, and an official version was adopted at the 1924 Convention. With a few minor changes, this is the pledge service used today.

To bring widespread chapters a uniform standard for initiation ceremonies, the 1926 and 1928 Conventions held model instructions so that everyone could carry back the correct version. Violet Hess Μ was the first Convention initiate with the ceremony conducted by her chapter. In 1928, Dr. Blanche Carlson Williams ΑΧ, noted authoress, was the honored initiate.

Over the years the service has been conducted by either a chosen chapter or region or by National Council members. In 1930 Pauline Smeed ΑΑ was the initiate at the Madison Convention and for the first time the Loving Cup Ceremony was used as the Initiation banquet instead of during the ceremony.

When Julia's daughter, Mary Bishop Ι was initiated at the 1933 Convention, the prologue and closing explanations, to be given by the alumna advisor, were introduced. Its preparation was researched and prepared by Ruth Robertson Δ and Fannie Putcamp Smith Ζ with the final editing done by Margaret Huenefeld Pease Ξ.

The earliest recollection this writer (Florence Hood Miner) has of robes worn by the officers in the initiation services were of the lovely ones worn at Conventions by the National Council. The first chapter robes were designed by Iva Stock Smith Α.

At the 1954 Convention, President Bernice Hutchison Gale Μ asked for designs for appropriate practical robes to be used by college chapters. When a contest among the collegians proved unsatisfactory, Florence Spear ΑΒ was asked to research and submit recommendations. Council chose a design which would be easily made as well as authentic, and a presentation was made of it at the 1956 Convention and adopted. Later a new design was added as an alternative when Linda Alger Hobbs Θ was Ritual Chairman in 1979.

The wish for new and original music was fulfilled in 1936 when Virginia Ballaseyus Μ and Dorothy Mumford Williams ΑΖ collaborated on words and music. Previously Helen Slagel Δ, Louise Sheppa Lovett Μ and Carolyn Tilley Μ had provided songs which are still used.

Source: Reprinted from Delta Zeta Sorority 1902-1982 written by Florence Hood Miner