Her father, Clement Chase, who owned a newspaper and a bookstore, was a women's rights advocate and encouraged Hinton's energetic nature and belief that she could do what she wished with her life.
During her years at the Omaha's Episcopal School for Girls, Hinton found herself bored with the traditional education and turned to various extra curricular activities including working as an assistant in her father's store and playing tennis.
[1] At Bryn Mawr College, where she trained as a teacher, Hinton found a greater love of reading and the type of education she had been seeking earlier in life.
[1] In 1934 a Hull House friend arranged the sale of Elm Lea Farm in Putney, Vermont for a reduced price for Hinton to found a school.
At first it enrolled the children of wealthy progressives and liberals; and though all its students, staff, and faculty were heeded and treated as constituents by Hinton, she was the sole director of every aspect of the school.
After 1955 she continued to attend the school's meetings, though she was officially retired, and travelled, led trips, founded other education projects and summer camps, and gave speeches.