The family also built a home at Mackinac Island, Michigan, where they spent many of their summers. The Hamilton family's large estate on a three-block area of downtown Fort Wayne included three homes. Much of the city of Fort Wayne was built on land he once owned. Allen Hamilton became a successful Fort Wayne businessman and a land speculator. In 1828 he married Emerine Holman, the daughter of Indiana Supreme Court Justice Jesse Lynch Holman. Įdith's grandfather, Allen Hamilton, was an Irish immigrant who came to Indiana in 1823 by way of Canada and settled in Fort Wayne. Edith spent her youth among her extended family in Fort Wayne. 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. The Hamilton sisters: Edith, Alice, Margaret and NorahĮdith 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. 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.Įarly life and education Childhood and family with Homeric power and simplicity in her style of writing'. Hamilton's other notable works include The Roman Way (1932), The Prophets of Israel (1936), Mythology (1942), and The Echo of Greece (1957).Ĭritics have acclaimed Hamilton's books for their lively interpretations of ancient cultures, and she is described as the classical scholar who 'brought into clear and brilliant focus the Golden Age of Greek life and thought . It was an immediate success and a featured selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1957.

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

Hamilton's second career as an author began after her retirement from the Bryn Mawr School in 1922. 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.

A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she also studied in Germany at the University of Leipzig and the University of Munich. The Greek Way, The Roman Way, The Prophets of Israel, MythologyĮdith Hamilton (Aug– 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.

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