High school fraternities and sororities, also called secondary fraternities and sororities, were inspired by and modeled after Greek-letter organizations which became prevalent in North American colleges and universities during the nineteenth century (Owen 492).
Most of the American secondary fraternities that were successful in the twentieth century had national governing bodies, produced regular publications, and convened in regular (often annual) national conventions.
These groups were identified by a coat-of-arms and members wore distinctive fraternity badges or pins.
Although there were countless local high school fraternities and sororities with only one or two chapters, many secondary fraternities founded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States grew into national organizations with a highly evolved governing structure and regularly chartered chapters in multiple regions.
In the 1900s, some state governments banned fraternities and sororities in public schools, driving them underground, or out of existence.