Portrait of Edith Wharton

Birthday profile

Edith Wharton

American writer and designer (1862–1937)

Born
January 24, 1862
Died
August 11, 1937
Zodiac sign
Aquarius
Birth year
1862

About Edith Wharton

Edith Newbold Wharton (; née Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American writer and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of upper-class New York society to portray, realistically, the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel The Age of Innocence. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. Her other well-known works are The House of Mirth, the novella Ethan Frome, and several notable ghost stories. Wharton began writing poetry and fiction as a young girl, and she attempted to write her first novel at the age of 11. During her travels, the young Edith became fluent in French, German, and Italian.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Edith Wharton was born

Edith Wharton was born in 1862. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineBattle of Antietam — bloodiest single day in US history
  • Technology milestoneGatling gun patented
  • World population~1.42B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderAbraham Lincoln
  • U.S. population32.2M

1862 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Edith Wharton's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18622026
Population32.2M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.