Mitchell, Lucy (1845–1888)

American archaeologist . Born Lucy Myers Wright on March 20, 1845, in Urmia, Persia (now Orūmīyeh, Iran); died in Lausanne, Switzerland, on March 10, 1888; attended Mt. Holyoke Seminary; married Samuel S. Mitchell (a missionary), in 1867.

Born Lucy Myers Wright in Urmia, Persia (now Orūmīyeh, Iran), on March 20, 1845, Lucy Mitchell was the daughter of a missionary to Nestorian Christians. She spent her formative years in Persia and gained a conversational ability in both the Syriac and Arabic languages, as well as in French, German, and Italian. Mitchell moved to the United States in 1860 and enrolled at Mt. Holyoke Seminary, but left school in 1864 to rejoin her father in Syria. Following his death in 1865, she returned to the United States.

Lucy married missionary Samuel S. Mitchell in 1867, and the couple returned to Syria on a mission shortly thereafter. There she began work on a dictionary of modern Syriac, which remained unpublished after her husband's failing health forced them to leave Syria for Rome. (The manuscript is now held by Cambridge University.) While in Rome, Mitchell began studying ancient art and by 1876 was giving lectures on Greek and Roman sculpture. Despite her lack of formal archaeological training, her scholarship earned her studying privileges at many leading museums and libraries, and Mitchell collaborated with the most noted archaeologists of her day. She published A History of Ancient Sculpture and a companion volume of plates, Selections from Ancient Sculpture, in 1883. Mitchell's work received praise from both professional archaeologists and the public, and in 1884 she became just the second woman elected to the German Archaeological Institute. She traveled to Berlin that year to begin preparation of a book on Greek pottery and vase painting, but poor health forced her to abandon the project in 1886. Lucy Mitchell died in Lausanne, Switzerland, on March 10, 1888.

sources:

McHenry, Robert, ed. Famous American Women. NY: Dover, 1980.

Grant Eldridge , freelance writer, Pontiac, Michigan