In a society where women were discouraged from entering college due to their "insufficient brainpower" and "delicate health," four women from Syracuse University came together to form a society they named Gamma Phi Beta. Gamma Phi Beta was founded on November 11, 1874.The four women were Helen M. Dodge, Frances E. Haven, E. Adeline Curtis and Mary A. Bingham, imaginative, courageous risk takers who worked to achieve the same ideals of womanhood that Gamma Phi Beta emphasizes today.

After the installation of Beta chapter at the University of Michigan in 1882, Syracuse faculty member Dr. Frank Smalley coined the word sorority especially for Gamma Phi Beta. It has been used ever since.