P.E.O. Sisterhood founded at Iowa Wesleyan College

Background. Iowa Wesleyan University was a private university in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, United States. It was Iowa's first coeducational institution of higher learning and the oldest of its type west of the Mississippi River. The P.E.O. Sisterhood was founded at this institution on January 21, 1869, as a seven-member sorority.

Founding. The Sisterhood was founded on January 21, 1869, as a seven-member sorority at Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. The founding occurred after some of these seven girls were invited to join a chapter of I.C. Sorosis organized in Mount Pleasant a month earlier. But they would not join without their other friends and decided to organize their own sorority.

Context. The P.E.O. Sisterhood was the second sorority to be founded in the U.S., after I.C. Sorosis (now known as Pi Beta Phi) in Monmouth, Illinois in April 1867. The founding members included Mary Allen, Ella Stewart, Alice Bird Babb, Hattie Briggs, Franc Roads, Alice Virginia Coffin, and Suela Pearson.