Mary Hamilton Swindler first came to Bryn Mawr College in 1906 as a graduate scholar in Greek. From 1912 until 1949 she taught Archaeology and Classics at the college, a role in which she inspired many students to enter to field, including Dorothy Burr Thompson (class of 1923) and Lucy Shoe Meritt (class of 1927). Swindler is also known for having spent 14 years as editor of the American Journal of Archaeology, and having written the well received and influential book Ancient Painting.
Born in Bloomington, Indiana in 1884, Swindler graduated from the University of Indiana in 1905 and received her master's degree from the same university in 1906. Her fellowship at Bryn Mawr lasted from 1906 until 1909 when the Mary E. Garrett European Fellowship permitted her to study at Oxford, the University of Berlin, and the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. She also traveled to Greece and Crete.
From 1910 to 1912 Swindler taught Latin at the Shipley School and the Wright School and served as acting dean of women at the University of Indiana during the summers of 1911 and 1913. Swindler received her PhD. from Bryn Mawr College in 1912. Her teaching career at Bryn Mawr began in 1912 with positions as Reader in Latin and Demonstrator in Archaeology. She became professor of Classical Archaeology in 1931. Swindler introduced the major in archaeology at Bryn Mawr, organized the excavation of Tarsus, and founded the college's Ella Riegel Memorial Museum.
Swindler spent fifteen years researching her book Ancient Painting, which was published in 1929. She planned a second major work to be titled The Beginning of Greek Art, but never finalized her manuscript. He editorship of the American Journal of Archaeology lasted from 1932 to 1946 and is said to have transformed the journal into a more professional periodical with more field coverage. She was also well known as a lecturer.
Upon her retirement in 1949, she was appointed research fellow at the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and also taught at the University of Michigan. She died in 1967.
For more information see "Exploring Ancient Worlds: The Life of Mary Hamilton Swindler," by Catherine E. Forrest Weber published in the journal Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History, Spring 2005, pps. 6-11.
From the guide to the Mary Hamilton Swindler Papers, 1906-1949, (Bryn Mawr College)
