Edwin Atlee Barber was born in Baltimore, Maryland to William Edwin Barber and Anne Eliza Townsend. He entered Lafayette College in 1869 but left before graduating to assume a position as an assistant naturalist for the Hayden Survey. He developed an interest in decorated pottery and rapidly became an authority in Pueblo ceramic art. He contributed several articles to the American Naturalist about his work with the Hayden Survey. He returned to Lafayette College and graduated in 1877. Edwin received a graduate degree from Lafayette College in 1893 and began working as curator of ceramics at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art becoming the director in 1907.