Helen North died on January 21, 2012, at age 90, ten days before her 91st birthday. At the time of her death she was Centennial Professor Emerita of Classics at Swarthmore College, an institution with which she was closely associated for more than sixty years.
Her long, distinguished connection with the American Academy in Rome began in 1942 with her appointment as a World War II Fellow. From 1972 to 1975 she served on the Board of Trustees as the elected trustee of the Advisory Council to the Classical School. She served on the board as an ex officio member from 1972 to 1975 and then joined as a regular member in 1977, a post she held until 1994. During this period she was a Resident (1980) and chaired the Committee on the Classical School from 1981 to 1995 when she received the Academy’s Centennial Medal for unique contributions to its welfare.
Helen also had long and fruitful connections with a number of other institutions, especially the American Philological Association from which she received its Distinguished Service Award in 1996. She served the association notably in numerous capacities, among them as a member of the Charles J. Goodwin Award Committee (1972–75), as director on three occasions (1969–72, 1977, 1991–95), as second vice president, first vice president, and president (1974–76), as vice president for research (1991–92) and, most recently, as delegate to the American Council of Learned Societies (1992–95).
She herself won the association’s Goodwin Award in 1969 for her book Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self Restraint in Greek Literature. Her second book, From Myth to Icon: Reflections of Greek Ethical Doctrine in Literature and Art, based on the Martin Classical Lectures she gave at Oberlin College in 1972, is remarkable not least for its splendid bridging of the gap between literature and the visual arts. These books, further volumes she edited (Of Eloquence: Studies in Ancient and Mediaeval Rhetoric by Harry Caplan, Interpretations of Plato: A Swarthmore Symposium) and articles she wrote claim a firm place in every classicist’s primary reading list.
Throughout her career Helen was a much admired, award-winning teacher, deeply influencing generations of devoted students at Swarthmore and elsewhere, and stimulating many to enter upon careers as scholars and educators. Her abiding commitment to the classroom is also reflected in her role as one of the editors of the American Philological Association’s Series of College Texts. She worked continuously throughout her career for the good of the field of classics, of the humanities and of higher education in general.
Many other organizations have been beneficiaries of her wisdom and vitality. For more than twenty years she shared her talents with major committees of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and as one of its senators. For nearly three decades she helped guide the Catholic Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, which she chaired in 1970–71. As a member of its board of directors and later of the executive committee of its board of delegates, she offered leadership to the American Council of Learned Societies, whose search committee for a new president she chaired in 1985–86. She served the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in various capacities, as a member of its managing committee, of the committees on publications and of admissions and fellowships as well as of the executive committee.
She held important positions with the American Philosophical Society to which she was devoted. Numerous other institutions have also benefited from her dedication, among them LaSalle University, the National Humanities Center, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the J. Paul Getty Foundation, the American Association of University Women, the Fulbright Commission, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In the process of carrying out all these responsibilities her acumen, intelligence, and care left a profound impression on all those with whom she came in contact.
Helen’s accomplishments have been acknowledged, on the one hand, by the award of prestigious fellowships (among them Guggenheim, NEH, ACLS, and AAUW grants), and, on the other, by visiting professorships or residencies (at the American School, the American Academy, and Vassar College where she held the Blegen Visiting Distinguished Research Professorship of Classics) as well as by election to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in the American Philosophical Society. She was the recipient of five honorary degrees.
Her deep love of learning, her gentle firmness of manner, and generosity of spirit, her sense of humor coupled with her ability to find the best in people stood her in good stead as she pursued her extraordinary career. As an educator of broad vision, she was uniquely effective and persistent in strengthening several of the most important institutions that keep the classical tradition alive and that also allow us to experience this tradition at its sources.
I cannot conclude without mention of her deep love of Rome, its antiquities, churches, fountains, obelisks. Those of us who accompanied her on walking tours in her favorite city were particularly privileged to enjoy her special combination of knowledge, sensitivity, good will and energy. After such occasions we returned home to the Gianicolo exhausted but exhilarated. She remains a lasting icon of the crucial, enduring values for which the Academy stands.