Most famous as the editor of Emily Dickinson’s poems and letters, Bingham was born in DC, and studied geography at Vassar College, Radcliffe College (where she earned a PhD), and the Sorbonne in Paris. She accompanied her father on astronomical expeditions to the Dutch East Indies, Tripoli, Chile, Peru, and Kiev. During WWI, she volunteered with the YMCA at a hospital in France.
Bingham’s publications include: Peru, A Land of Contrasts (1914), and the papers “La Floride du Sud-est et la Ville de Miami” (1932) and “Miami, a Study in Urban Geography” (1948). She translated geographical works from French to English by Raoul Blanchard and Vidal de la Blache.
Beginning in 1931, Bingham edited on the Dickinson papers saved by her mother, Mabel Loomis Todd, and worked to bolster her mother’s reputation as the person most responsible for bringing Dickinson’s poetry to public attention. Bingham edited Bolts of Memory (1945), a collection of 600 previously unpublished Dickinson poems, and the nonfiction title Ancestor’s Brocades (1945, essays on the Dickinson family controversy with the Todds over rights), Emily Dickinson’s Home (1955, an edited collection of Dickinson family correspondence), and Emily Dickinson: A Revelation (1954, correspondence).
In addition, Bingham established the Todd Wildlife Sanctuary in Maine in memory of her mother (now administers by the National Audubon Society), and the Todd Forest in Massachusetts (now part of Amherst College). She wrote biographies of her former teacher, Mary S. Stearns (1909), her maternal grandfather, Eben Jenks Loomis (1913), and her mother (1935), and received honorary degrees from Dickinson College and Amherst College. She is buried alongside her husband in Arlington National Cemetery.
The Homes
1661 Crescent Place NW, Apartment 410, Washington, DC
An E-shaped apartment in a restrained Neo-Renaissance style, this building was designed with 50 spacious apartments.
Also home to: Wendell Phillips Stafford