Swimming-Zetetic Society's Camping Trip
Datec. 1922
MediumPaper
ClassificationsDocumentary Artifact
Catalog number1987.1.172
DescriptionSwimming-Zetetic Society's Camping Trip.The Zetetic Society of the Tempe Normal School was a club comprised of young female students and was active from the 1890s to the 1920s. The Zetetic Society was focused on literature and the arts, including music. The trend in Zetetic Societies was a national (and probably international) phenomenon at this time. The Normal School's Zetetic Society appears to have had outings on a regular basis, whether swimming in the Salt River, or even exploring and camping at other locatons in the desert and around Arizona.
An article published in the Casa Grande Dispatch on August 24, 1934, says of the Zetetic Society that “...perhaps a total of more than three hundred picked young women on the campus at Tempe have been banded together by the mystic ties of friendship with professor [James Lee] Felton as their advisor and guide.” This 1934 article also states that by that time, the Zetetic Society had become the Zeta Sigma Sorority. Although the date of this name change/transition is not known, it may have occurred around 1930. At least one photo of Zetetic Society members on an outing at a dam on the Salt River – 1999.14.630 – dates to 1928, indicating that the organization's name was still in use at least until the late 1920s.
Status
Not on view
