Helen M. Dodge, Frances E. Haven, E. Adeline Curtis and Mary A. Bingham founded Gamma Phi Beta on November 11, 1874 at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. They were imaginative, courageous risk takers who cooperated unselfishly as they worked to achieve the same ideals Gamma Phi Beta emphasizes today.

Colleges and Universities admitted few women students in the 1870s. In fact, administrators and faculty members gave women a rather reluctant welcome. They argued women had inferior minds and could not master mathematics and the classics. Amidst this controversy, Dr. E.O. Haven, Syracuse University chancellor and former president of the University of Michigan and Northwestern University, maintained that women should receive the advantages of higher education. He enrolled his daughter, Frances, at Syracuse, which in 1874 had approximately 200 students and 10 faculty members. Instead of joining the two-year-old Alpha Phi, Frances, asked three friends to assist her in organizing a society. They sought the advice and help of Dr. Haven, their brothers, the faculty and members of two fraternities. The minutes of their first meeting on November 11, 1874 state: "Miss Dodge was appointed to draft a Constitution. Frances Haven and Helen Dodge agreed to ask Dr. Haven for a suitable name and motto."

The Founders met again on November 16 for further decisions as recorded in the minutes: "The merits of the six mottoes suggested by Chancellor Haven were discussed, and the motto Gamma Phi Beta unanimously accepted." They agreed on a badge design for which they had sought the help of Charles M. Cobb and Charles M. Moss, Frances' future husband. Helen's brother, a divinity student, suggested the Hebrew word. The jeweler delivered the first badges on December 16, 1874.

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.

Today, Gamma Phi Beta has over 150 chartered collegiate chapters and approximately 150 alumnae groups throughout the United States and Canada with more than 130,000 members worldwide.