======================================================================
= Edith_Hamilton =
======================================================================
Introduction
======================================================================
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 the University of
Leipzig and the University of Munich. 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.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
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; Margaret, like her
older sister, Edith, became an educator and headmistress at Bryn Mawr
School; 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.
Education
===========
Because Edith's parents disliked the public school system's
curriculum, they taught their children at home. 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." 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.
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. Hamilton became the
first woman to enroll at the University of Munich.
Studies in Germany
====================
In the fall of 1895 the Hamilton sisters departed for Germany, where
Alice intended to continue her studies in pathology at the University
of Leipzig and Edith planned to study the classics and attend
lectures. At that time, most North American women, including Edith and
Alice, registered as auditors for their classes. When the sisters
arrived in Leipzig, they found a fair number of foreign women studying
at the university. 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." As a result, they decided to enroll at the
University of Munich, 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." 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.'"
Educator
==========
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 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.
In 1906, Hamilton's accomplishments as an educator and administrator
were recognized when she was named the first headmistress in the
school's history. Hamilton, who believed in providing students with a
"rigorous" curriculum, successfully transitioned the girls school from
its "mediocre beginnings into one of the foremost preparatory
institutions in the country." Her insistence on offering challenging
standards to the students and different options on school policies led
to confrontations with Dean Thomas. As Hamilton became increasingly
frustrated with the situation at the school, her health also declined.
She retired in 1922 at the age of fifty-four, after twenty-six years
of service to the school.
Classicist and author
=======================
After retiring as an educator in 1922 and moving to New York City in
1924, Hamilton began a second career as an author of essays and
best-selling books on ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. She had
studied Greek and Latin from her youth and it remained her lifelong
interest. "I came to the Greeks early," Hamilton told an interviewer
when she was ninety-one, "and I found answers in them. Greece's great
men let all their acts turn on the immortality of the soul. We don't
really act as if we believed in the soul's immortality and that's why
we are where we are today."
For more than fifty years her "love affair with Greece had smoldered
without literary outlet". At the suggestion of Rosamund Gilder, editor
of 'Theater Arts Monthly,' Hamilton began by writing essays about
Greek drama and comedies. Several of her early articles were published
in 'Theater Arts Monthly' before she began writing the series of books
on ancient Greek and Roman life for which she is most noted. Hamilton
went on to become America's most renowned classicist of her era.
According to her biographer, Barbara Sicherman, Hamilton's life was
"ruled by a passionately nonconformist vision" that was also the
source of her "strength and vitality" as well as her "appeal as public
figure and author." However, Hamilton was not, and did not claim to
be, a scholar. She did not attempt to present excessive detailed facts
from the past. Instead, Hamilton focused on readability and uncovering
"truths of the spirit," which she found from ancient writers. Drawing
from Greek, Roman, Hebrew, and early Christian writings, Hamilton put
into words what ancient people were like by concentrating on what they
wrote about their own lives. Using the qualities and styles of the
ancient writers, she emulated their directness, strived for
perfection, and did not include footnotes.
;'The Greek Way'
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.
The successful book, which Hamilton wrote at the urging of Elling
Annestad, an editor at W. W. Norton Company, made her a well-known
author in the United States. The bestseller drew comparisons between
ancient Greece and modern-day life with essays about some of the great
figures of Athenian history and literature. Critically praised for its
"vivid and graceful prose," the book brought Hamilton immediate
acclaim and established her reputation as a scholar. Biographer Robert
Kanigel states that "'The Greek Way' renders the ancient Greek mind
accessible to the modern reader. It serves up a delectable appetizer
of Greek civilization that leaves you begging for the rest of the
meal. It is a work of popularization of the highest order."
In Hamilton's view, Greek civilization at its peak represented a
"flowering of the mind" that has yet to be equaled in the history of
the world. 'The Greek Way' showed that the Greeks recognized and
appreciated such things as love, athletic games, love of knowledge,
fine arts, and intelligent conversation. In "East and West," the first
of the book's twelve chapters, Hamilton described the differences
between the West and the Eastern nations which preceded it. One book
reviewer noted that the Greeks, which Hamilton considered the first
Westerners, challenged Eastern ways that "remained the same throughout
the ages, forever remote from all that is modern." Hamilton further
suggested that the modern spirit of the West was "a Greek discovery,
and the place of the Greeks is in the modern world."
More recent writers have used Hamilton's observations in contrasting
the civilizations and cultures of the East with that of the West. In
comparing ancient Egypt with Greece, for instance, Hamilton's writing
describes the unique geography, climate, agriculture, and government.
Historian James Golden cites from 'The Greek Way' that "Egyptian
society was preoccupied with death." Its pharaohs erected giant
monuments to themselves to impress future generations and its priests
advised the slaves to "look forward to an afterlife." Golden used
Hamilton's research to contrast these differences with the Greeks,
especially the Athenians. Hamilton argued that individual "perfection
of mind and body" dominated Greek thought and as a result, the Greeks
"excelled at philosophy and sports" and that life "in all its
exuberant potential" was the hallmark of Greek civilization.
;'The Roman Way'
'The Roman Way' (1932), her second book, provided similar contrasts
between ancient Rome and present-day life. It was also a
Book-of-the-Month Club selection in 1957. 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. She also suggested how
Roman ideas applied to the modern world.
Although her books were successful and popular among readers, she
conceded "that it was hopeless to persuade Americans to be Greeks" and
that "life had become far too complex since the age of Pericles to
recapture the simple directness of Greek life ... the calm lucidity of
the Greek mind, which convinced the great thinkers of Athens of their
mastery of truth and enlightenment."
;'The Prophets of Israel'
Her books later covered other areas of interest, especially from the
Bible. In 1936, Hamilton wrote 'The Prophets of Israel' (Norton,
1936), which interpreted the beliefs of the "spokesmen for God" in the
Old Testament. With no knowledge of the Hebrew language, she relied on
English language versions of the Bible to similarly compare the
achievements and personal lives of the prophets with those of
twentieth-century readers. She concludes that the prophets were
practical and their political views reflected their time, but their
ideals were modern.
Hamilton also 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. "The prophets understand them as no men have more, and in
their pages we can find ourselves. Our aspirations are there, our
desires for humanity." American historian Bruce Catton noted the
prophets, whose "religion was an affair of the workaday world," and
their messages that Hamilton described in her "excellent book" are
still as relevant today. A subsequent edition of the book, 'Spokesmen
for God: The Great Teachers of the Old Testament' (Norton, 1949),
supplied additional commentary on the first five books of the Old
Testament. Christian Science historian Robert Peel described it as "a
work of sheer delight."
;'Mythology'
John Mason Brown, American drama critic, praised Hamilton's 'The Greek
Way', placing it at the top among modern-day written about ancient
Greece," and 'Mythology' as "incomparably superior to Thomas
Bulfinch's work on the subject. Hamilton's 'Mythology' (1942),
recounts the stories of classical mythology and ancient fables. She
used an approach to mythology that was entirely through the literature
of the classics. (She had not traveled to Greece until 1929 and was
not an archaeologist.) The book received favorable reviews, was
another Book-of-the-Month Club selection, and had sold more than four
and a half million copies by 1957.
;Later works
In 1942, after moving to Washington, D.C., Hamilton continued to
write. At the age of eighty-two she offered new perspectives on the
New Testament in 'Witness to the Truth: Christ and His Interpreters'
(1948) and produced a sequel to 'The Greek Way', titled 'The Echo of
Greece' (1957). The sequel to her first book discusses the political
ideas of such teachers and leaders as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,
Demosthenes, and Alexander the Great.
Hamilton continued traveling and lecturing in her eighties, and wrote
articles, reviews, and translations of Greek plays, including 'The
Trojan Women,' 'Prometheus Bound,' and 'Agamemnon.' She also edited,
with Huntington Cairns, 'The Collected Dialogues of Plato' (1961).
Companion Doris Reid
======================================================================
Doris Fielding Reid (1895-1973) was an American stockbroker. She was
the daughter of Harry Fielding Reid, an American geophysicist, and
Edith Gittings Reid, biographer of Doctor William Osler and President
Woodrow Wilson. She was a student of Edith Hamilton. Reid was employed
by Loomis, Sayles and Company beginning in 1929. Reid and Hamilton
became lifelong companions. They lived together in Gramercy Park,
Manhattan and Seawall, Maine, during which time they raised and
home-schooled Reid's nephew, Francis Dorian Fielding Reid (1917-2008).
After Hamilton's death, Reid published the book 'Edith Hamilton: An
Intimate Portrait' (1967). Reid died on January 15, 1973, in
Manhattan. Both women are buried at Cove Cemetery in Hadlyme,
Connecticut.
Later years
======================================================================
Hamilton and Doris Reid remained in New York City until 1943, then
moved to Washington, D.C., and spent their summers in Maine. 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;
Hamilton continued to write and frequently entertained friends, fellow
writers, government representatives, and other dignitaries at her
home. Among the eminent and famous were Isak Dinesen, Robert Frost,
Harvard classicist Werner Jaeger and labor leader John L. Lewis.
After her move to Washington, Hamilton became a commentator on
education projects and began to receive honors for her work. Hamilton
also recorded programs for television programs and Voice of America,
traveled to Europe, and continued to write books, articles, essays,
and book reviews.
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. As part of the evening's ceremonies, King Paul of
Greece awarded the Golden Cross of the Order of Benefaction--one of
Greece's highest honors--to her. The mayor of Athens made her an
honorary citizen of the city. The US news media, including 'Time'
magazine, covered the event. An article in 'Publishers Weekly'
described the event in Hamilton's honor: floodlights illuminated the
Parthenon, the Temple of Zeus and, for the first time in history, the
Stoa. Hamilton called the ceremony "the proudest moment of my life."
Modern influences
======================================================================
Many of the facts in 'The Greek Way' (1930) have surprised modern
readers. One reviewer in Australia explained Hamilton's view "that the
spirit of our age is a Greek discovery, and that the Greeks were
really the first Westerners, and the first intellectualists." The same
reviewer also credited the book with noting that modern concepts of
play and sport were actually common activities to the Greeks, who
engaged in exercise and athletic events, including games, races, and
music, dancing, and wrestling competitions, among others.
Among those whose lives were influenced by Hamilton's writings was
U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy. In the months after his brother,
President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated, Robert was consumed with
grief. Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave him a copy of 'The
Greek Way,' which she felt was certain to help him. Political
commentator David Brooks reported that Hamilton's essays helped him
better understand and then recover from his brother's tragic death.
Hamilton's writings remained important to him over time, as Brooks
explains, and changed Kennedy's life. "He carried his beaten,
underlined and annotated copy around with him for years, reading
sections aloud to audiences in a flat, unrhythmic voice with a
mournful edge" and could recite from memory various passages of
Aeschylus that Hamilton had translated.
According to reviewers, Hamilton's 'The Prophets of Israel' (1936) had
similarities to her earlier books about Greeks and Romans by making
the prophets' messages relevant to contemporary readers. She
accomplishes this, according to one writer, by showing that "behind
all great thought stands an individual mind, fired by passion and
possessed of an eye that sees deeply into humanity." The views of the
prophets, it adds, are very similar to those in modern times: "The
prophets were forerunners of three genuinely American
movementshumanism, pragmatism and the philosophy of common sense."
Death
======================================================================
Hamilton died in Washington, D.C. on May 31, 1963, at the age of
nearly 96. Four years after her death, Doris Fielding Reid published
'Edith Hamilton: An Intimate Portrait.'
Reid died on January 15, 1973. Both women are buried at Cove Cemetery
in Hadlyme, Connecticut, where Hamilton's sisters had retired, in the
same cemetery as Hamilton's mother (Gertrude), sisters (Alice, Norah,
and Margaret), and Margaret's life partner, Clara Landsberg.
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.
Legacy
======================================================================
Hamilton was long recognized as a great classicist of her era. Her
best-selling books were especially noteworthy for their accessibility
to a wide readership and for "representing the Greeks in particular as
a prestigious source of cultural inspiration for American society
during the decade before and the two decades after World War II."
Although Hamilton's reputation as an author is closely tied to her
writings about Greece, much of her professional life focused on Latin.
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. Hamilton also 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',
Hamilton's written works primarily focused on fourth and fifth century
BC Athens. Hamilton's correspondence and papers are held at the
Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College.
Honors and recognition
======================================================================
In 1906 Hamilton became the first headmistress of the Bryn Mawr School
in Baltimore, Maryland.
In 1950 Hamilton received an honorary degrees of Doctor of Letters
from the University of Rochester and the University of Pennsylvania.
She was also the recipient of an honorary degree from Yale University
in 1960. In addition, Hamilton was elected to the American Institute
of Arts and Letters in 1955 and the American Academy of Arts and
Letters in 1957.
Hamilton received the National Achievement Award in 1951 as a
distinguished classical scholar and author. She received the award
along with Anna M. Rosenberg, Assistant Secretary of Defense. The
award was created in 1930 to honor women of accomplishment and inspire
others.
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.
In 1957 and 1958 she was interviewed by NBC television, and in 1957
'The Greek Way' and 'The Roman Way' were selected by the Book of the
Month Club as summer readings. John F. Kennedy invited her to his
inauguration, which she declined. He also sent an emissary to her home
asking for advice about a new cultural center.
In 1958 the Women's National Book Association awarded her for her
contribution to American culture through books. George V. Allen,
director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) and one of the
speakers at the award ceremony, remarked that her interpretation of
the democratic spirit of ancient Greece, defined "the fundamental of
the democratic ideal itself." He also noted that USIA included seven
of her books in its overseas libraries in order to help people of
other countries interpret American ideals.
She is the subject of a biography by Doris Fielding Reid, 'Edith
Hamilton: An Intimate Portrait'.
Robert F. Kennedy quoted from Hamilton's translated works, "in what is
perhaps his most memorable speech", during a campaign rally on April
4, 1968, in Indianapolis, Indiana, as the news of the assassination of
Martin Luther King Jr. spread. Kennedy quoted from memory several
lines from Hamilton's translation of Aeschylus's tragedy, 'Agamemnon',
telling the grief-stricken crowd: "In our sleep, pain which cannot
forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair,
against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
Kennedy also incorporated another line from Hamilton's writing, "her
representation of an ancient Greek inscription" in his closing remarks
to the crowd: "Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so
many years ago--to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life
of this world." According to classicist Joseph Casazza, that line
about "taming the savageness of man" was created by Hamilton herself
and has no direct relation to a single ancient text. Based on his
research, Casazza believes that the phrase is a combination of a line
from a 125 B.C. decree about Athens by Delphi and another line from
'On the Character of Thucydides' by Dionysius of Halicarnassus.
In 2000 the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, erected statues of two
Hamilton sisters, Edith and Alice, along with their cousin, Agnes, in
the city's Headwaters Park.
Selected published works
======================================================================
*'The Greek Way' (1930)
*'The Roman Way' (1932)
*'The Prophets of Israel' (1936)
*'Three Greek Plays' (1937)
*'Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes' (1942)
*'The Great Age of Greek Literature' (1942)
*'Witness to the Truth: Christ and His Interpreters' (1948)
*'Spokesmen for God' (1949)
*'The Echo of Greece' (1957)
*'The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including the Letters' (1961),
edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns
* 'The Ever Present Past' (1964), collected essays and reviews
External links
======================================================================
*
*
*[
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:RAD.SCHL:sch00032 Edith Hamilton
Papers] (finding aid) at Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute,
Harvard University - with short biography
*
*
*
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Hamilton
