[3] She attended Westtown School in Philadelphia, and completed both undergraduate work and doctoral studies at Stanford University, in 1909[4] and in 1917,[5] respectively.

[7][8] Her dissertation project, a translation and commentary titled Maphaeus Vegius and his Thirteenth Book of the Aeneid, was published by Stanford University Press in 1930,[9] and reissued in 2002.

[10] Brinton prepared A Pre-Raphaelite Aeneid, which was privately published in 1934 by art collector Estelle Doheny (wife of Edward L.

She edited a text by William Penn (No Cross, No Crown, 1945),[18] an essay collection, Then & Now: Quaker Essays, Historical and Contemporary (1960)[19] and a reference work, Quaker Profiles: Pictorial & Biographical 1750-1850 (1964),[20] and wrote a biography, The Wit and Wisdom of William Bacon Evans (1964), and a history, Toward Undiscovered Ends: Friends and Russia for 300 Years (1951).

Lydia, the eldest, Catharine, an elementary school teacher, Joan, the youngest, and their son Edward Brinton (1924-2010) became a noted oceanographer.