Lucy Myers Wright

1845 - 1888  (42 years)

• Name	Lucy Myers Wright
  Birth	20 Mar 1845	Urumiah, Persia   [1]
  Gender	Female
  Death	10 Mar 1888	Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland   [1]
  Siblings	1 sibling
  1. John Henry Wright ,   b. 4 Feb 1852, Urumiah, Persia d. 25 Nov 1908, Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts  (Age 56 years) ▻ Mary Tappan ,  m. 2 Apr 1879   2. Lucy Myers Wright ,   b. 20 Mar 1845, Urumiah, Persia d. 10 Mar 1888, Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland  (Age 42 years) ▻ Samuel S. Mitchell ,  m. 1867
  Person ID	I30352	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
  Last Modified	16 Sep 2020

  
  

  Father	Rev. Austen Hazen Wright,   b. 11 Nov 1811, Hartford, Windsor, Vermont d. 4 Jan 1865, Urumiah, Persia (Age 53 years)
  Mother	Catherine Myers,   b. 20 Nov 1821, Whitehall, Washington, New York d. 13 Feb 1888, New York, New York (Age 66 years)
  Marriage	13 Jun 1844	Seir, Persia   [2]
  Family ID	F12669	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Samuel S. Mitchell,   b. of Morristown, Morris, New Jersey
  Marriage	1867  [1]
  Family ID	F12411	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	16 Sep 2020

  
  

• Notes

  Her birthplace, also spelled Orumiyeh, now generally called Urmia, is now in West Azerbaijan, the northernmost and westernmost province of modern Iran. From Britannica.com (accessed 16 Sep 2020): Lucy Myers Wright Mitchell, née Lucy Myers Wright…archaeologist who, though self-taught, became an internationally recognized authority on ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. Lucy Wright was the daughter of a missionary to the Nestorian Christians in Persia. In 1860 she was taken to the United States, and a short time later she entered Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College), South Hadley, Massachusetts, leaving in 1864 to rejoin her father in Persia. On his death the next year she returned to the United States. She married Samuel S. Mitchell in 1867, and they traveled together as missionaries to Syria. Her husband’s health failed soon afterward, however, and they left Syria; the rest of Lucy Mitchell’s life was spent mainly in Europe. By that time she had acquired a vernacular knowledge of Syriac and Arabic, as well as French, German, and Italian, and for a time she devoted herself to philological studies. Her dictionary of modern Syriac was never published, and the manuscript was ultimately obtained by the University of Cambridge. In 1873 Mitchell turned her attention to ancient art. While living in Rome (1876–78) she gave parlour lectures on Greek and Roman sculpture. A number of museums and libraries granted her scholar’s privileges, and many leading archaeologists of Europe assisted her in her studies. In 1883 she published A History of Ancient Sculpture and a companion volume of plates, Selections from Ancient Sculpture. These works were well received by critics and fellow scholars, and in 1884 she became only the second woman to be elected to the Imperial German Archaeological Institute. From 1884 to 1886 she studied in Berlin for a major work on Greek pottery and vase painting. Mitchell fell ill, however, and died before completing her studies.

  
  

• Sources

  [S4404] Stephen L. Dyson, "Lucy Wright Mitchell, 1845-1888." In Breaking Ground: Women in Old World Archaeology at Brown University. [S2659] The Hazen Family in America by Tracy Elliot Hazen, ed. Donald Lines Jacobus. Thomaston, Connecticut: Robert Hazen, 1947.