| 1 | Name: | Dr. Helen F. North | |
| Institution: | Swarthmore College | ||
| Year Elected: | 1991 | ||
| Class: | 4. Humanities | ||
| Subdivision: | 405. History and Philology, East and West, through the 17th Century | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1921 | ||
| Death Date: | January 21, 2012 | ||
Helen North was the Centennial Professor of Classics Emerita at Swarthmore College at the time of her death January 21, 2012. She had taught at Swarthmore 1948-91. She began studying Latin at Utica Free Academy and Greek at Cornell University, where she received an A.B. in 1942 and a Ph.D. in 1945. In addition to Swarthmore, she taught at Rosary College, Barnard College and Columbia University, LaSalle College, Vassar College, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and the American Academy in Rome. Her publications included Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature, which received the Goodwin Award of the American Philological Association in 1969, and From Myth to Icon: Reflections of Greek Ethical Doctrine in Literature and Art (Martin Classical Lecture, 1972). Dr. North edited Interpretations of Plato: A Swarthmore Symposium (1977) and co-edited Of Eloquence: Studies in Ancient and Mediaeval Rhetoric by Harry Caplan (1969) and (with Mary C. North) The West of Ireland: A Megalithic Primer (1999) and Cork and the Rest of Ireland: A Megalithic Primer II (2003). She also translated Milton's Second Defense of the English People in the Yale Complete Works (1966). Recent articles and lectures dealt with Plato's rhetoric, Cicero's oratory and rhetoric, and Hestia and Vesta in Greek and Roman cult. Helen North chaired the Phi Beta Kappa Committee on Visiting Scholars and was an editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas. In 1995, she received the Centennial Medal of the American Academy in Rome, on whose Board she served from 1972 to 1991. In 1996 she was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Service from the American Philological Association, of which she was President in 1976. Dr. North was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society in 1991. She died in Swarthmore at the age of 90. | |||