Founders
Pi Lambda Phi was founded at Yale University in 1895. The three founders, Frederick Manfred Wernver, Louis Samter Levy, and Henry Mark Fisher, were denied admission into existing college fraternities because of their racial and religious backgrounds, therefore they set out to start a fraternity where no one would be excluded because of such backgrounds. The preamble of the Founders' Bulletin states, "We students at American colleges appreciating the need of a fraternity which shall eliminate all sectarianism do hereby associate ourselves in the Pi Lambda Phi Fraternity."
Early Stages
There is very little known about the first stages of Pi Lambda Phi's history due to the loss or destruction of records, often due to the instability of the fledgling chapters. Chapters would essentially spring up overnight and then disappear the next day. However, little pieces of information are known about the earliest chapters at Yale (Alpha chapter), Columbia (Beta chapter), College of the City of New York (C.C.N.Y.) (Gamma chapter), and New York University. A yearbook published at C.C.N.Y. in 1899 had Pi Lambda Phi chapters listed at the previous four chapters as well as University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Cornell and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Pi Lam Struggles
Many of the early chapters struggled to exist. In fact, the Alpha chapter and Gamma chapter at Yale and CCNY both ceased to exist after 1898, while the Columbia and NYU chapters struggled along until 1901. Pi Lambda Phi was effectively dormant until 1906 when the Columbia chapter attepted to revive it. Unfortunately the effort was unsuccessful, but it did lead the way for an effective revival in 1908.
