The history of Pi Lambda Phi can be divided into two periods. The first period, which we shall designate The Founders' Period, begins with the inception of the fraternity at Yale in 1895, flourishing in opinions within a few short years to a position of enviable promise and achievement only to totter and collapse with equal suddenness. The second or Revitalization Period, dates from 1908, when the Alpha chapter was established at Columbia University. It is from this chapter that the present Pi Lambda Phi Fraternity has developed, young, vibrant and energetic, and destined in due time to be named among the great collegiate fraternities. 

THE FOUNDERS' PERIOD 

The early period of Pi Lambda Phi is wrapped in a veil of mystery and has, thus far, defied all efforts to penetrate it adequately. Most of the early archives have either been lost or destroyed.  The responsibility for this condition can be easily attributed to the spasmodic character of the fraternity's early career. Chapters sprang up over-night and disappeared with equal celerity, leaving scant records of their short-lived careers. Not even membership rolls have been found.  Very little is known of the Delta chapter, which existed between 1895 and 1900 at the University of Pennsylvania, of Epsilon chapter at Harvard, Lambda at Cornell or Nu at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'The Microcosm", a yearbook published by the College of the City of New York, class of 1899, has a page devoted to Pi Lambda Phi, whereon are listed the chapters as named above. 

THE REVITALIZATION PERIOD 

In 1908 the Columbia Chapter was revived by Walter Weil, Paul Charles Werner, George Rosenthal, and  Aaron Galewski, with the help of H. Arthur Diamant. They wanted to establish a non-sectarian Fraternity, and they obtained permission from Brother's Diamant and Arthur Shore to use the name of Pi Lambda Phi. Shortly thereafter in 1910 a local fraternity known as Sigma Iota became the Gamma Chapter at N.Y.U., and in 1911 Cornell was installed as Delta Chapter, and from there Zeta at Pennsylvania, Epsilon at Michigan, and Gamma Sigma at Pittsburgh, along with Lambda at Lehigh were chartered. 

During the fall of 1916 a group of alumni organized a convention to discuss centralization- of authority, administration, and general national policy. The result as a new National constitution, which provided for government of the Fraternity by a National Council much the way we operate today. 
February 1, 1941 witnessed union with Phi Beta Delta Fraternity, which had been founded in 1912. At the time of the union Pi Lambda Phi had 20 active chapters, here Phi Beta Delta had 16. Deducting duplicate chapters, the united Fraternity at the time of the merger had a total of 33 active undergraduate chapters. The union was easily accomplished because the ideologies and purposes of the two fraternities had been similar. At the time of the merger the Greek-letter designations of active  chapters were altered by prefixing names of the states in which the chapters were located. Prior to this time, each chapter was known only by its Greek- letter and now the title of each chapter is prefixed by the state. 

In November of 1960 Beta Sigma Tau Fraternity merged with Pi Lambda Phi. Of the six chapters which composed Beta Sigma Tau, three were voted into the brotherhood by a vote of the PiLam active chapters. On December 12 1972 Beta Sigma Rho, a national fraternity founded on October 12, 1910, merged with Pi Lambda Phi. Here too the idealism of both fraternities were quite similar, as both were in fact nonsectarian organizations. Today Founders' Day is celebrated on March 21st, honoring those fraternities that have merged with Pi Lambda Phi. 

Wars, depressions and a number of other uncontrollable variables have resulted in the closing of some chapters, as is the case of every Fraternity.  The oldest surviving Pi Lambda Phi Chapter is the Epsilon Zeta Chapter, founded in 1896 at the University of Pennsylvania. 

* This account of the history of Pi Lambda Phi was written by Pennsylvania Epsilon Zeta Chapter at University of Pennsylvania