58 Facts About Edith Hamilton

Edith Hamilton was an American educator and internationally known author who was one of the most renowned classicists of her era in the United States.

Hamilton began her career as an educator and head of the Bryn Mawr School, a private college preparatory school for girls in Baltimore, Maryland; however, Hamilton is best known for her essays and best-selling books on ancient Greek and Roman civilizations.

Edith Hamilton was sixty-two years old when her first book, The Greek Way, was published in 1930.

Edith Hamilton, the eldest child of American parents Gertrude Pond and Montgomery Hamilton, was born on August 12,1867, in Dresden, Germany.

Shortly after her birth, the Hamilton family returned to the United States and made their home in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where Edith's grandfather, Allen Hamilton, had settled in the early 1820s.

Edith Hamilton spent her youth among her extended family in Fort Wayne.

Allen Edith Hamilton became a successful Fort Wayne businessman and a land speculator.

Edith Hamilton's father attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School and studied in Germany.

Montgomery Edith Hamilton became a partner in a wholesale grocery business in Fort Wayne, but the partnership dissolved in 1885 and the business failure caused a financial loss for the family.

Edith Hamilton was the oldest of five siblings that included three sisters and a brother, all of whom were accomplished in their respective fields.

Edith Hamilton became an educator and renowned author; Alice became a founder of industrial medicine; Margaret, like her older sister, Edith Hamilton, became an educator and headmistress at Bryn Mawr School; and Norah was an artist.

Edith Hamilton became a writer, professor of Spanish, and assistant dean for foreign students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Edith Hamilton credited her father for guiding her towards studies of the classics; he began teaching her Latin when she was seven years old.

Edith Hamilton's father introduced her to Greek language and literature, where her mother taught the Hamilton children French and had them tutored in German.

In 1884 Edith began two years of study at Miss Porter's Finishing School for Young Ladies in Farmington, Connecticut, where attendance was a family tradition for the Hamilton women.

Edith Hamilton returned to Indiana in 1886 and began four years of preparation prior to her acceptance at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1891.

Edith Hamilton majored in Greek and Latin and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree in 1894.

Edith Hamilton became the first woman to enroll at the University of Munich.

Edith Hamilton intended to remain in Munich, Germany, to earn a doctoral degree, but her plans changed after Martha Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, persuaded Edith Hamilton to return to the United States.

In 1896 Edith Hamilton became head administrator of Bryn Mawr School.

Edith Hamilton enhanced student life, maintained its high academic standards, and offered new ideas.

Edith Hamilton was unafraid to suggest new initiatives such as having her school's basketball team compete against another girls' team from a nearby boarding school.

Edith Hamilton retired in 1922 at the age of fifty-four, after twenty-six years of service to the school.

Edith Hamilton had studied Greek and Latin from her youth and it remained her lifelong interest.

At the suggestion of Rosamund Gilder, editor of Theater Arts Monthly, Edith Hamilton began by writing essays about Greek drama and comedies.

Edith Hamilton went on to become America's most renowned classicist of her era.

Edith Hamilton did not attempt to present excessive detailed facts from the past.

Edith Hamilton was sixty-two when her first book, The Greek Way, was published in 1930 and is considered by some as her most honored work.

In "East and West," the first of the book's twelve chapters, Edith Hamilton described the differences between the West and the Eastern nations which preceded it.

In comparing ancient Egypt with Greece, for instance, Edith Hamilton's writing describes the unique geography, climate, agriculture, and government.

Edith Hamilton described life as it existed according to ancient Roman poets such as Plautus, Virgil and Juvenal, interpreted Roman thought and manners, and compared them to people's lives in the twentieth century.

Edith Hamilton suggested how Roman ideas applied to the modern world.

In 1936, Edith Hamilton wrote The Prophets of Israel, which interpreted the beliefs of the "spokesmen for God" in the Old Testament.

Edith Hamilton concludes that the prophets were practical and their political views reflected their time, but their ideals were modern.

Edith Hamilton summarized the importance of that connection to people in modern times: "Love and grief and joy remain the same forever beautiful" and "poetic truth is always true" as are truths of the spirit.

Edith Hamilton used an approach to mythology that was entirely through the literature of the classics.

In 1942, after moving to Washington, DC, Edith Hamilton continued to write.

Edith Hamilton edited, with Huntington Cairns, The Collected Dialogues of Plato.

Edith Hamilton was the daughter of Harry Fielding Reid, an American geophysicist, and Edith Gittings Reid, biographer of Doctor William Osler and President Woodrow Wilson.

In Washington, Reid was in charge of the local offices of Loomis, Sayles and Company, an investment firm that had been her employer since 1929; Edith Hamilton continued to write and frequently entertained friends, fellow writers, government representatives, and other dignitaries at her home.

Edith Hamilton recorded programs for television programs and Voice of America, traveled to Europe, and continued to write books, articles, essays, and book reviews.

Edith Hamilton considered the high point of her life to be a trip to Greece at age 90 in 1957, where, in Athens, she saw her translation of Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound performed at the ancient Odeon theater of Herodes Atticus.

Political commentator David Brooks reported that Edith Hamilton's essays helped him better understand and then recover from his brother's tragic death.

Edith Hamilton's writings remained important to him over time, as Brooks explains, and changed Kennedy's life.

Edith Hamilton died in Washington, DC on May 31,1963, at the age of nearly 96.

Edith Hamilton's adopted son, Dorian, who had earned a degree in chemistry at Amherst College, died at West Lafayette, Indiana, in January 2008, aged 90.

Edith Hamilton was long recognized as a great classicist of her era.

Edith Hamilton "claimed special expertise in Greek," but after her graduation from Bryn Mawr College, where she majored in Greek and Latin, she spent another year at the college as a fellow in Latin and another year studying Latin in Germany.

Edith Hamilton taught Latin to girls in the senior class during her 26-year career at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore.

However, with the exception of The Roman Way, Edith Hamilton's written works primarily focused on fourth and fifth century BC Athens.

In 1906 Edith Hamilton became the first headmistress of the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, Maryland.

In 1950 Edith Hamilton received an honorary degrees of Doctor of Letters from the University of Rochester and the University of Pennsylvania.

Edith Hamilton was the recipient of an honorary degree from Yale University in 1960.

Edith Hamilton received the National Achievement Award in 1951 as a distinguished classical scholar and author.

Edith Hamilton received the award along with Anna M Rosenberg, Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Edith Hamilton was awarded the Golden Cross of the Order of Benefaction, Greece's highest honor, and became an honorary citizen of the city in 1957.

Edith Hamilton sent an emissary to her home asking for advice about a new cultural center.

Edith Hamilton is the subject of a biography by Doris Fielding Reid, Edith Hamilton: An Intimate Portrait.