Wright, Helen (1914–1997)

American astronomer and author . Name variations: Helen Wright Greuter. Born Helen Wright in Washington, D.C., on December 20, 1914; died of heart failure at the Thomas House Retirement Home in Washington, D.C., on October 23, 1997; only daughter of four children of Frederick Eugene Wright (a well-known petrologist and consultant for the National Parks) and Kathleen Ethel (Finley) Wright (who graduated from McGill University in Montreal with the governor-general's medal for highest honors in history and languages); attended Madeira School in Washington, the Mont Choisi in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Bennett School in Millbrook, New York; graduated from Bennett Junior College, 1934; Vassar College, B.A., 1937, M.A., 1939; married John Franklin Hawkins (an artist), in 1946 (divorced); married Rene Greuter (died early 1970s); no children.

Helen Wright was a pioneering American astronomer who founded and directed the great California observatories: Mount Wilson, in Pasadena, and Mount Palomar. She also foundedThe Astrophysical Journal, one of the preeminent journals of astronomy and physics, before turning to freelance writing and editing in the 1940s; her subjects included mathematics, physics, anthropology, and archaeology. Wright's career began at Vassar College, where she worked as a student assistant in the astronomy department and won the Lucy Kellogg English Prize in astronomy and physics. While doing graduate work at Vassar, she wrote her M.A. thesis on "A Preliminary Investigation of the Topography of the Moon."

During World War II, Wright was a junior astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory. She is best known for her books Sweeper of the Sky: The Life of Maria Mitchell (Macmillan, 1949) and Explorer of the Universe: A Biography of George Ellery Hale (Dutton, 1966). Wright also chronicled the creation of Palomar, then the world's largest telescope (1952).