Edwin Augustus Grosvenor (August 30, 1845 – September 15, 1936) was a historian, author, chairman of the history department at Amherst College, and president of the national organization of Phi Beta Kappa societies from 1907 to 1919.[1] Grosvenor was called "one of the most cosmopolitan of Americans" by author and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson.[2] His son, Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, was the first employee and longtime editor of National Geographic Magazine.
He prepared at Brown High School in Newburyport, and graduated from Amherst College in 1867 as class poet and salutatorian.[4] 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 in 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."[5]The New York Times said that Grosvenor was "uniquely suited to the task."[6] 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."[7]
On October 23, 1873, Grosvenor married Lilian Hovey Waters (b. 1852), of Millbury. Lilian was the daughter of Col. Asa Holman Waters and the granddaughter of the gunsmith Asa Waters. Together, Edwin and Lilian resided for a number of years in the Waters Mansion in Millbury.[9] Just over two years later, the couple gave birth to twins on October 28, 1875:[10]
"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.
References
^Woolley, Mary Emma and D.P. Kingsley (January 1926). "Women in Phi Beta Kappa". The Phi Beta Kappa Key. 6 (6): 375–383. JSTOR42914699.
^Phi Beta Kappa. Alpha of New York (Union College) (1917). The Centenary of Alpha of New York of Phi Beta Kappa: Celebrated at Union College June 11 and 12, 1917. Schenectady, N.Y.: Gazette Press. p. 3.
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