Converted to EAD3 : Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Version 3 : Release: 1.1.1 : Release Date: 2019-12-16. Validating against latest version of schema.
Contact information: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm79046607
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The papers of Elizur Wright, reformer, publisher, and actuary, were given to the Library of Congress by the estate of Wilhelmine Gerber Wright and by Margaret Odlin Green (Mrs. Charles Green), in 1934. An addition was given by Diana Wright in 1989.
The collection was processed in 1990. The finding aid was revised in 2010 by Karen Stuart. The finding aid was updated in 2024 by Maria Farmer as part of a division-wide remediation project by the Inclusive Description Working Group.
The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of Elizur Wright is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
The papers of Elizur Wright are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Elizur Wright Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of Elizur Wright (1804-1885) span the years 1793-1935, with the bulk of the material falling between 1830-1885. The collection consists principally of correspondence, but also includes writings, scrapbooks, press clippings, and other material by and about Elizur Wright and Wright family members. The papers are organized into the following series: Correspondence, Writings, and Miscellany.
The earliest papers in the collection, 1793-1829, pertain to Wright’s parents, Elizur (1762-1847) and Clarissa Richards Wright, their neighbors in Tallmadge, Ohio, and older or more distant relatives. Elizur Wright, Sr., was involved with the Reverend William Hanford in the founding of Western Reserve College, and held one of its first professorships. From 1822-1826, Elizur Wright, Jr., was a student at Yale College; his letters home describe his education and social life, and his early career as a schoolmaster in the Union and Lawrence academies in nearby Groton, Connecticut. Wright’s 1829 letters to Susan Clark (1810-1875), his former pupil, discuss their forthcoming marriage.
Late in 1829, Wright moved with his young wife to Hudson, Ohio to accept an appointment as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Western Reserve College. There, with Beriah Green and other members of the faculty, he formed the Western Reserve College Anti-Slavery Society. Debate over the abolition movement ultimately split the faculty and prompted Wright’s removal to New York. He became active in the American Anti-Slavery Society, edited its
As ideological differences continued to divide abolitionist ranks in the 1840s, Wright left New York and the
Wright’s anti-slavery activities continued in the 1850s (he was arrested in 1851 on a charge of aiding Shadrach Minkins, a fugitive from slavery) but continuing financial difficulties and his varied interests encouraged him to pursue other enterprises. He patented, and worked to promote, a “stop-cock” water valve. Continuing to publish the
Wright’s letters of the early 1860s are mostly concerned with his insurance and actuarial enterprises, and make only passing reference to the Civil War. Wright invented and patented the “arithmeter,” a calculating machine, and was appointed to the Massachusetts Commission on the Hours of Labor. Letters to and from Salmon P. Chase discuss Reconstruction laws and the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. Family letters discuss the marriages of Wright’s son John and daughter Mary, and, with the birth of grandchildren, child rearing practices.
Wright’s correspondence in the 1870s reflects his involvement in the National Liberal League; the “free thought” movement, which advocated strict separation of church and state, full civil rights for all citizens, and various educational and social reforms; and his writings in the publication
In the last years of Wright’s life, his correspondence focused on activities of the National Liberal League, his biography of Myron Holley, and his involvement in the Middlesex Fells Association, a group formed to promote the preservation of a tract of forest land near Boston. He corresponded frequently with a Mrs. Lawrence, author of
The collection’s later correspondence chiefly concerns Ellen Wright’s continuation of her father’s efforts to promote conservation of the Middlesex Fells, and Walter C. Wright’s insurance enterprises. Undated material includes miscellaneous fragments, usually from Wright or family members.
Correspondents include Wright family members and Francis Ellingwood Abbot, Louisa May Alcott, May Alcott, De Robigne Mortimer Bennett, Catherine H. Birney, James Gillespie Birney, William Birney, Henry Browne Blackwell, William Henry Burleigh, Salmon P. Chase, Charles A. Dana, Joshua N. Danforth, William Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley, Beriah Green, Sallie Holley, Robert Green Ingersoll, Simeon Smith Jocelyn, Amos A. Phelps, Wendell Phillips, Albert L. Rawson, Gerrit Smith, Henry B. Stanton, Lewis Tappan, Theodore Dwight Weld, and John Greenleaf Whittier.
This collection is arranged in three series:
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm79046607
Principally letters written or received by Elizur Wright, Jr.
Organized in two sets, bound and unbound, and therein chronologically.
Bound volumes of typed transcriptions compiling Wright’s shorter essays on public affairs, religion, and life insurance, followed by manuscript notes and drafts pertaining to other works.
Arranged chronologically.
Legal and financial papers, prints and photographs, clippings and printed matter, and scrapbooks.
Organized by type of material and therein chronologically.