Edith Hamilton (August 12, 1867 – May 31, 1963) was an American educator and internationally known author who was one of the most renowned classicists of her era in the United States. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she also studied in Germany at Leipzig University and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. 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.
Hamilton's second career as an author began after she retired from the Bryn Mawr School in 1922. She was sixty-two years old when her first book, The Greek Way, was published in 1930. It was an immediate success and a featured selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1957. Hamilton's other notable works include The Roman Way (1932), The Prophets of Israel (1936), Mythology (1942), and The Echo of Greece (1957).
Critics have acclaimed Hamilton's books for their lively interpretations of ancient cultures. She is described as the classical scholar who "brought into clear and brilliant focus the Golden Age of Greek life and thought ... with Homeric power and simplicity in her style of writing". Her works are said to influence modern lives through a "realization of the refuge and strength in the past" to those "in the troubled present." Hamilton's younger sister was Alice Hamilton, an expert in industrial toxicology and the first woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard University.
Early life and education Childhood and family
Edith Hamilton, the eldest child of American parents Gertrude Pond (1840–1917) and Montgomery Hamilton (1843–1909), 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 spent her youth among her extended family in Fort Wayne.Janice Lee Jayes, "Hamilton, Edith (1867–1963)" in
Edith's grandfather, Allen Hamilton, was an Irish immigrant who came to Indiana in 1823 by way of Canada and settled in Fort Wayne. In 1828 he married Emerine Holman, the daughter of Indiana Supreme Court Justice Jesse Lynch Holman. Allen Hamilton became a successful Fort Wayne businessman and a land speculator. Much of the city of Fort Wayne was built on land he once owned. The Hamilton family's large estate on a three-block area of downtown Fort Wayne included three homes.Edith's grandparents lived in the old homestead, called Old House; her uncle, Andrew Holman Hamilton, and his family lived in Red House; and Edith and her family lived in White House on the family compound. See Weber, p. 40. The family also built a home at Mackinac Island, Michigan, where they spent many of their summers. For the most part, the second and third generations of the extended Hamilton family, which included Edith's family, as well as her uncles, aunts, and cousins, lived on inherited wealth.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, pp. 14, 25.
Montgomery Hamilton, a scholarly man of leisure, was one of Allen and Emerine (Holman) Hamilton's eleven children; however, only five of the siblings lived. Her father attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School and also studied in Germany. Montgomery met Gertrude Pond, the daughter of a wealthy Wall Street broker and sugar importer, while living in Germany. They were married in 1866.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, pp. 15, 17. Montgomery 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.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, p. 18. Afterwards, Montgomery Hamilton retreated from public life. Edith's mother, Gertrude, who loved modern literature and spoke several languages, remained socially active in the community and had "wide cultural and intellectual interests." After her father's business failed, Edith realized that she would need to provide a livelihood for herself and decided to become an educator.Jayes, p. 729.
Edith was the oldest of five siblings that included three sisters (Alice (1869–1970), Margaret (1871–1969), and Norah (1873–1945)) and a brother (Arthur "Quint" (1886–1967)), all of whom were accomplished in their respective fields. Edith became an educator and renowned author; Alice became a founder of industrial medicine;Alice Hamilton became a resident of Chicago's Hull House, a settlement house that offered food, shelter, and educational classes as a charitable effort on the part of wealthy donors and scholars who volunteered their time. She later became a noted pioneer in industrial toxicology, a professor of pathology Woman's Medical School of Northwestern University, a special scientific investigator for the U.S. Bureau of Labor. In 1919 Alice became the first woman professor (assistant professor of internal medicine) at Harvard Medical School. Later in life she was a reformer, political activist, and consultant in the U.S. Division of Labor Standards. She also served as president of the National Consumers League and authored textbooks on industrial poisons and industrial toxicolory. See: Margaret, like her older sister, Edith, became an educator and headmistress at Bryn Mawr School;In 1899 Margaret Hamilton studied biology in Munich, Germany, and Paris, France, with a close colleague and family friend, Clara Landsberg, the daughter of a Reform rabbi from Rochester, New York. After graduating from Bryn Mawr College, Landsberg also resided at Hull House, where she was in charge of its evening programs and shared a room with Alice Hamilton. Landsbert went on to teach Latin at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, where Edith was headmistress. Margaret later taught at Bryn Mawr School and served as its headmistress before retiring in 1935. See: Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, pp. 141, 257. Alice considered Landsberg part of the Hamilton family: "I could not think of a life in which Clara did not have a great part, she has become part of my life almost as if she were one of us." See Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, p. 197. See also: and Norah was an artist. Hamilton's youngest sibling, Arthur, was nineteen years her junior. He became a writer, professor of Spanish, and assistant dean for foreign students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Arthur was the only sibling to marry; he and his wife, Mary Neal (d. 1965), had no children.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, pp. 11–13.
Education
Because Edith's parents disliked the public school system's curriculum, they taught their children at home.Judith P. Hallett, "Edith Hamilton" in As she once described him, "My father was well-to-do, but he wasn't interested in making money; he was interested in making people use their minds."New York Times, Obituary, June 1, 1963. Edith, who learned to read at an early age, became an excellent storyteller. Hamilton credited her father for guiding her towards studies of the classics; he began teaching her Latin when she was seven years old. Her father also 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 (now known as Miss Porter's School) in Farmington, Connecticut, where attendance was a family tradition for the Hamilton women. Three of Hamilton's aunts, three cousins, and her three sisters attended the school.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, p. 15.
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. She majored in Greek and Latin and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree in 1894. Hamilton spent the year after her graduation as a fellow in Latin at Bryn Mawr College and was awarded the Mary E. Garrett European Fellowship, the college's highest honor. The cash award from Bryn Mawr provided funds to enable Edith and Alice, who had completed her medical degree at the University of Michigan in 1893, to pursue further studies in Germany for an academic year.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, p. 89. Hamilton became the first woman to enroll at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
Studies in Germany In the fall of 1895 the Hamilton sisters departed for Germany,Weber, p. 43. where Alice intended to continue her studies in pathology at Leipzig University and Edith planned to study the classics and attend lectures.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, p. 90. At that time, most North American women, including Edith and Alice, registered as auditors for their classes.Their adventures in Germany are described in Alice's autobiography. See When the sisters arrived at Leipzig University, they found a fair number of foreign women who studied there. They were informed that women could attend lectures, but they were expected to remain "invisible" and would not be allowed to participate in discussions.
According to Alice, "Edith was extremely disappointed with the lectures she attended." Although they were thorough, the lectures "lost sight of the beauty of literature by focusing on obscure grammatical points."Alice remarked, "Instead of the grandeur and beauty of Aeschylus and Sophocles, it seemed that the important thing was their use of the second aorist." See Singer, 74–75. As a result, they decided to enroll at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, but it was not much of an improvement. Initially, it was uncertain whether Edith would be allowed to audit lectures, but she was granted permission to do so, albeit under trying conditions. According to Alice, when Edith arrived at her first class, she was escorted to the lecture platform and seated in a chair beside the lecturer, facing the audience, "so that nobody would be contaminated by contact with her."Hamilton, pp. 44–45. Edith is quoted as saying, "the head of the University used to stare at me, then shake his head and say sadly to a colleague, 'There now, you see what's happened? We're right in the midst of the woman question.'"
Career Educator Hamilton intended to remain at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Germany, to earn a doctoral degree, but her plans changed after Martha Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, persuaded Hamilton to return to the United States. In 1896 Hamilton became head administrator of Bryn Mawr School. Founded in 1885 as a college preparatory school for girls in Baltimore, Maryland, Bryn Mawr School was the country's only private high school for women that prepared all of its students for collegiate coursework. The school's students were required to pass Bryn Mawr College's entrance exam as a requirement for graduation.
Although Hamilton never completed her doctorate, she did become an "inspiring and respected head of the school" and was revered as an outstanding teacher of the classics, along with being an effective and successful administrator. She enhanced student life, maintained its high academic standards, and offered new ideas. 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. The proposed athletic competition was considered a scandalous suggestion for the time because news coverage would include the names of the participants. After Hamilton convinced the local press not to cover the event, the games proceeded and it became an annual tradition.Weber, p. 38.Jayes, p. 730.