Edwin A. Grosvenor

Edwin A. Grosvenor.

Edwin Augustus Grosvenor (1845–1936) was a historian, author, chairman of the history department at Amherst College, and longtime president of the national organization of Phi Beta Kappa societies. Grosvenor was called "one of the most cosmopolitan of Americans" by author and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson. His son, Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, was the first employee and longtime editor of National Geographic Magazine.

Early years

Grosvenor was born in 1845 in West Newbury, Massachusetts, the son of Dr. Edwin Prescott Grosvenor and the author Harriet (Sanborn) Grosvenor. He prepared at Brown High School in Newburyport, MA, and graduated from Amherst College in 1867 as class poet and salutatorian. After graduating, he served as a tutor at Robert College in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey). After returning to the U.S., he obtained an M.A. from Amherst College and was ordained as a minister in Newburyport, 1872.

Career

In 1872 Edwin Grosvenor returned to Robert College with his young wife and began teaching.

Grosvenor then taught at Amherst College from 1892 to 1914, and was professor emeritus until his death in 1936.

His two volume Constantinople was "the most important treatise . . . that has yet appeared in English,” wrote a reviewer in the Springfield Republican. “One of the books of the year." The New York Times said that Grosvenor was "uniquely suited to the task." Grosvenor was President of the United Chapters Phi Beta Kappa from 1907 to 1919 and a frequent commencement speaker, often talking on the subject of "the love of wisdom is the guide of life… knowledge applied to right uses and to the service of man.” Grosvenor received honorary degrees from Wabash College, Alfred University, Marietta College, and the College of William & Mary. He was a member of the American Antiquarian Society, Authors' Club, and numerous other societies.

Personal life

On October 23, 1873, Grosvenor married Lilian Hovey Waters, of Millbury, MA, granddaughter of the gunsmith Asa Waters, and they resided for a number of years in the Waters Mansion in Millbury. Just over two years later, the couple gave birth to twins Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor and Edwin Prescott Grosvenor, on October 28, 1875.

Bibliography

Books

• The Hippodrome of Constantinople: and Its Still Existing Monuments, 1889, 62 pages
• Constantinople, Volume 1 and 2, Roberts Brothers, 1895 LCCN=04022752. With an introduction by General Lew Wallace.
• Andronike, the Heroine of the Greek Revolution, by Stephanos Theodoros Xenos, translated from the Original Greek by E.A. Grosvenor, Boston, Mass., 1897.
• Permanence of the Greek Type, American Antiquarian Society, 1898.
• Contemporary History of the World, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1899
• A General History of the World, Volumes 1 to 4, with Victor Duruy and Louis Edwin Van Norman, The Review of Reviews Co., 1912

Selected Articles

• "Address for the United Chapters," in Addresses at the Presentation of the Chapter Rooms in Morris Pratt Memorial Library, Phi Beta Kappa, 1913
• "Constantinople and Sancta Sophia," National Geographic, May, 1915, pp. 459–482.
• "Evolution of Russian Government," National Geographic, July, 1905, pp. 309–332.
• "Growth of Russia," National Geographic, May, 1900, pp. 169–185.
• "Last Night of the Misolonghi," published in the New Century Speaker, a collection of extracts by Prof. Henry Allyn Frink, Ph.D., Ginn & C., Boston, 1898, page 52.
• "Races of Europe," National Geographic, December, 1918, pages 441-553.

Further reading

• Poole, Robert M. Explorers House: National Geographic and the World it Made. New York: Penguin, 2004. ISBN 1-59420-032-7
• The Writer Magazine, "Sketches of Writers: Professor Edwin S. Grosvenor," Vol. IX. January, 1896. Pages 9–11.