Alpha Epsilon Phi was founded by seven Jewish women at Barnard College in New York on October 24, 1909. Helen Phillips, Ida Beck, Rose Gerstein, Augustina "Tina" Hess, Lee Reiss, Rose Salmowitz and Stella Strauss had a dream of forming a sorority where exceptional women of all backgrounds, religions, interests and varying beliefs would be welcomed with open arms. This sorority would endeavor to foster lifelong friendship and sisterhood, academics, social involvement and community service, all the while providing a home away from home for its members. "It was her [Helen Phillips'] idea and her persistence more than anything else that brought Alpha Epsilon Phi into existence," one founder wrote. "I sometimes think that some of those ties were more necessary to Helen than to the others in this group because Helen had no mother and no sisters or brothers, and to her a group of adopted sisters was more of a need and had more significance."