Zeta Tau Alpha was founded on October 15, 1898 at Longwood College in Farmville, Virginia. The 9 founders, Maud Jones Horner, Della Lewis Hundley, Alice Bland Coleman, Mary Jones Batte, Alice Grey Welsh, Ethel Coleman Van Name, Helen May Crafford, Frances Yancey Smith and Ruby Leigh Orgain, sought to establish a fraternity that would "intensify friendship, promote happiness among its members, to perform such deeds, and to mould such opinions as will conduce to the building up of a purer and nobler womanhood in the world." The open motto of Zeta Tau Alpha is "Seek the Noblest."
ZTA at Rutgers University was founded on February 25, 1978 and is the 180th link in the ZTA chain.
