Edith Hamilton PhD (1867 - 1963)

Born 12 Aug 1867 in Dresden, North German Confederation

Ancestors

Died 31 May 1963 at age 95 in Washington D.C., United States

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Biography

Edith Hamilton PhD is Notable.

Edith Hamilton was born on August 12, 1867, in Dresden, Saxony, Germany, her father, Montgomery, was 24, and her mother, Gertrude, was 27. She had one brother and three sisters. She grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Author, Educator. She received notoriety as an American author of non-fiction classical literature, bringing to life the daily aspects in ancient Rome, Greece and Norse myths. In 1930 she successfully published her first book, “The Greek Way,” which was followed with another successful book in 1932, “The Roman Way.”

These books have became stable textbooks in studying Greek and Roman history. Other books she published were “The Prophets of Israel” in 1936, “Mythology” in 1942, “The Great Age of Greek Literature” in 1943, “Witness to the Truth: Christ and his Interpreters” and “Spokesmen for God” in 1949, and “The Echo of Greece” in 1957. Finishing a few weeks before her death, she co-authored in 1963 “The Collected Dialogues of Plato: Including the Letters.”

The oldest of five children, she was born in Germany while her mother was visiting relatives, but returned to the United States when she was two months old. As a member of a wealthy pioneering family of the State of Indiana, she lived her childhood on her family's estate in Fort Wayne. Besides being wealthy, she and members of her family were very intelligent. She came a gifted storyteller with a phenomenal memory. She did especially well with languages learning French from her mother, German from from her servants, and by the age of seven, her father had taught her Latin and by the age of eight, Greek.

At the age of sixteen, she and her sisters started classes at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut. These classes were not meeting her needs, hence she taught herself trigonometry from a textbook to take a college entrance exam. After two years of study, she graduated in 1894 with a Masters Degree in Art from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. At this point, she with her younger sister, Alice, who was a physician, traveled to Germany on a scholarship to study at the University of Leipzig and University of Munich, and they were the first women to attend a German university.

She may have stayed in Germany but her father lost his money and she was offered an excellent position in the United States. In 1896 she was appointed headmistress of Bryn Mawr School for Girls in Baltimore, Maryland. This school was one of the first in the United States that offered a curriculum to 400 female students that included languages, English, history, mathematics, science, religion, and physical education, which seem to be very liberal at that time. She remained in this position for 26 years before retiring in 1922 to devote herself to classical studies and writing, first writing articles before her first book in 1930.

At the age of ninety, she traveled to Greece. In recognition of her devotion to historical aspect of the city, she was made an honorary citizen of Athens and given the Gold Cross of the Legion of Benefaction by King Paul of Greece. Given for excellence to women authors, she was awarded the Constance Lindsay Skinner Award for Literature in 1958. She was the recipient of many honorary degrees and awards, including in 1955 elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and in 1957 elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Toward the end of her life, she recovered from a debilitating stroke, continuing to write and travel. She never married.

Bio by: Linda Davis ^[1]

She died on May 31, 1963, in Washington, District of Columbia, at the age of 95, and was buried in Hadlyme, Connecticut.

Sources

1. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #135744839

• Wikipedia: Edith Hamilton
• FamilySearch Person: 2MBB-KPK for census records