John Henry Wright

Infobox Writer
name = John Henry Wright


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birthdate = birth date|1852|2|4|mf=y
birthplace = Urumiah, Persia
deathdate = death date and age|1908|11|25|1852|2|4|mf=y
death_place = Cambridge, Massachusetts
occupation = Educator, classical scholar, author
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John Henry Wright (February 4, 1852 – November 25, 1908) was an American classical scholar, born at Urumiah, Persia. He was the son of missionary and oriental scholar Austin Hazen Wright, the brother of classical archaeologist Lucy Wright Mitchell, the husband of author Mary Tappan Wright and the father of legal scholar and utopian novelist Austin Tappan Wright and geographer John Kirtland Wright.

Life and family

Wright was born in Urumiah, Persia. He married, April 2, 1879 in Gambier, Ohio, Mary Tappan. The couple had three children, Elizabeth Tappan Wright (who died young), Austin Tappan Wright, and John Kirtland Wright. They lived successively in Hanover, New Hampshire, Baltimore, Maryland and Cambridge, Massachusetts, with their residency in the last interrupted by a period in Athens, Greece. Wright died November 25, 1908 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was survived by his wife and sons.

Education and career

He took his A.E. degree in 1873 and his A.M. in 1876, both at Dartmouth College, following which he was briefly assistant professor of ancient languages at Ohio State University. Afterward he studied for two years (1876–78) at Leipzig, returning to the United States in the latter year to take the position of associate professor of Greek at Dartmouth. In 1886, he was appointed professor of classical philology and dean of the Collegiate Board of Johns Hopkins, and a year later was called to be professor of Greek at Harvard, where in 1895 he was made dean of the Graduate School. In 1894, he was president of the American Philological Association. He received LL.D.s from foth Dartmouth and from Western Reserve University in 1901. He was a professor at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens from 1906–07. He was also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

cholarly works

He edited Collignon's "Manual of Greek Archæology" (English translation, 1886) and "A History of All Nations" (24 volumes, 1902). He was associate editor (1888–1906) of the "Classical Review", editor-in-chief (1897–1906) of the "American Journal of Archæology", and associate editor (1907–08) of the "Classical Quarterly".

Relationship with Vivekananda

In 1893 Wright sponsored the Indian Sage Vivekananda when the latter came to America; he remained a friend of the guru throughout his life.

References