The Lost Boys of Zeta Psi: A Historical Archaeology of Masculinity at a University Fraternity

by Laurie A. Wilkie

The Lost Boys of Zeta Psi takes us inside the secret, amusing, and sometimes mundane world of a California fraternity around 1900. Gleaning history from recent archaeological excavations and from such intriguing sources as oral histories, architecture, and photographs, Laurie A. Wilkie uncovers details of everyday life in the first fraternity at the University of California, Berkeley, and sets this story into the rich social and historical context of West Coast America at the turn of the last century. In particular, Wilkie examines men’s coming-of-age experiences in a period when gender roles and relations were undergoing dramatic changes. Her innovative study illuminates shifting notions of masculinity and at the same time reveals new insights about the inner workings of fraternal orders and their role in American society.

Genres: Anthropology, Archaeology, History

360 pages, Paperback

First published February 18, 2010

Reviews

[Nelson Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fraternal history of the 19th and 20th centuries teaches us a few things about what the era’s Zetes possessed, including fine China, dubious relationships with their masculinities, quixotic visions of their futures, fear of their mothers, and above all else, unconscious apprehension about what comes next that drives the modality of their youth. I could probably come to the same conclusions by looking at my peers—the subject’s 21st century brethren.

“The Lost Boys” is underscored but he endlessly innocent metaphor of Peter Pan; and yet that’s the crux of it: Never Land has no history, nor future. Even as centuries pass, some things never change, frozen in time as evidence of something nearly religious about fraternity.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Good Historical Archeaological Look at Masculinity in Fraternities

A necessary read for anyone interested in sex or gendered norms as we've come to know them nowadays. Wilkie has a good way of putting the past into perspective through the story of Peter Pan, though it can seem a little convoluted at points. Your eyes may also glaze over at the repeated lists of names and relations of people in the members of Zeta Psi. Would definitely recommend.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting approach to the study of a campus institution, that of a fraternity house, within a larger framework. The work uses the approach of archaeology to examine the fraternity by exhuming artifacts from the two houses the previously held the Zeta Psi. The author cleverly pairs this and draws parallels between the J.M. Barrie works of Peter Pan and Peter and Wendy and the life and times of the fraternity houses within the years of 1875 to 1959. This history takes us through such moments in American history as prohibition, the Great Depression, and other elements while also granting insight as to how the fraternity addressed coeducation, literary societies, and the rise of other fraternities. The archaeological work is well supplemented by student articles, yearbooks, and community newspaper articles. The end result is a highly readable, approachable, and unique approach to understanding and examining the life of campus in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in student life.