Albert Hazen Wright papers, 1779-1965.
Collection Number: 14-26-1382

Albert Hazen Wright was born August 15, 1879, in Hilton, NY. His parents were Delos C. Wright and Emily Hazen. He had one younger sister named Mabel. He attended Hilton High School, in Hilton, NY, Brockport Normal School and eventually Cornell University. It was at Cornell where he met Anna Maria Allen whom he married on June 25, 1910. Wright was a Cornell University professor and herpetologist.* He earned his PhD in vertebrate zoology in 1908. He and his wife were interested in the study of amphibians. In 1949, they co-authored the books Handbook of Snakes of the United States and Canada and Handbook of Frogs and Toads of the United States and Canada. The book Life-Histories of the Frogs of Okefinokee Swamp, Georgia: North American Salientia (Anura) No. 2 was written by Albert Hazen Wright and J. Whitfield Gibbons. The Cornell University's herpetology collection is now one of the largest of its kind in the nation. "The major strengths of the collection, amphibians from the southeastern United States and both reptiles and amphibians from the Northeast, reflects the intensive collection by the Wrights. Much of the material collected by the Wrights in New York and Georgia is not duplicated elsewhere."

Between 1921-22, A.H. Wright worked and studied in a part of Georgia known as the Okefenokee Swamp. He befriended Frances Harper who did extensive research on the culture and live of people who lived in the Okefenokee Swamp (See this website http://sherpaguides.com/georgia/okefenokee_swamp/sidebars/francis_harper.html for information on the Francis Harper Papers, which are housed in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (#3638)). In 1945, the book Our Georgia-Florida Frontier: The Okefenokee Swamp, its History and Cartography. . . was written by A.H. Wright. He also authored of "Pre-Cornell and Early Cornell VIII" as well as numerous other histories on various aspects of Cornell University. He also spent a lot of time on genealogical research related to the Wright family.

Wright was an honorary member of the International Ornithological Congress. And in 1959, he was elected the 2nd vice president of the Dewitt Historical Society. After years of research and writing, he died in Ithaca, NY in July of 1970, at the age of 90.

See also the Burt Green Wilder papers, #14-26-95, http://resolver.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/EADresolver?id=RMA00095

See also the Department of Zoology Records, #14-26-966, http://resolver.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/EADresolver?id=RMA00966

See the Frances Harper collection at the University of Chapel Hill, #3638 for more information on the Okefenokee Swamp. in this way.

Albert Hazen Wright papers, #14-26-1382. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

Correspondence, field notes, lecture notes, study notes, typescripts of articles, genealogies of the Wright family and of Noah Downs, negatives, slides, photographs, clippings, drawings, census reports, maps, Cornell Univerity and Ithaca, New York publications and printed material, transcripts of oral history interviews with Wright, manuscripts of his scientific books, and other material pertaining to his career as a zoologist, university professor, lecturer, and author. Other subjects include the Cornell University Natural History Society, the Zoology Department, and the Gamma Alpha Scientific Society; also, study and research notes pertaining to the Okefenokee Swamp, Sullivan's Expedition in New York State, lizards, snakes, frogs, and other herpetological subjects and issues.

Also research materials including correspondence, notes, outlines, typewritten and photo copies of newspaper articles, directories, court and census records, clippings, photographic prints and negatives, and other items used in the writing of Wright's histories of the New York State Agricultural College at Ovid, New York, the New York Central College at McGraw, New York, and the People's College at Havana (now Montour Falls), New York, as they pertained to the early history of Cornell University. Also, notes, transcripts from contemporary journals, narratives, autobiographies, orderly books, muster rolls and other sources pertaining to Wright's study of Sullivan's Expedition in New York State, 1779.

"Some Rewards of a Cornell Teacher of Biology," (43 pp. typescript carbon, ca. 1965), a compilation of tributes to Professor Wright and his wife Anna Allen Wright taken from his letters and papers soon after her death in December 1964. Among thoses attesting to his influence as a scientist, teacher, and historian and praising his wife and co-worker are Howard B. Adelmann, Arthur A. Allen, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Lane Cooper, Asa C. Chandler, Mary H. Donlon, Edith M. Fox, Paul W. Gates, Perry Gilbert, Ludlow Griscom, Ralph H. Hosmer, Glenn W. Herrick, Peter Paul Kellogg, Deane W. Malott, and Oscar D. von Engeln.