an artist of merit The daughter received her education at home. Until her thirteenth year she lived in Louisiana, but returned to New York in 1849, where she has since resided. While still a young girl, Miss Wright decided upon an independent career. Her first effort was in writing fiction. Her stories were published, but, dissatisfied with her work in that line, she turned her attention to the study of music. In 1860 she obtained a position as teacher of music in the Institution for the Blind in New York. After spending eleven years in teaching in that school, she was preparing to go abroad to pursue the study of music, when she became interested in the care of the insane. She determined to study medicine, with the hope that she might render service to that unfortunate class. In 1871 she entered the New York Medical College for Women, and in 1874 she received the diploma of that institution. Shortly after her graduation, and again some years later, backed by influential friends, Dr. Wright sought admission to one of the State asylums for the insane as assistant physician, but great was her disappointment to find, after preparing herself especially for that branch of work, that women were not considered eligible for the position of physician in those institutions, sex being the only ground upon which she was rejected. The better to care for her own patients, Dr. Wright was in 1878 made an examiner in lunacy, being the first woman so appointed. As a physician she has been successful, having established a large and remunerative practice. Realizing the necessity for women physicians in the field of gynaecology, she has for the past five or six years devoted herself to that branch of the practice of medicine as a specialist. In 1878 she was made a trustee of the medical college from which she was graduated. While serving as secretary of the board of trustees, she used her influence to establish women in the chairs of that college, and it was mainly through her determination and perseverance that women succeeded men as professors in that institution. Dr. Wright was one of the organizers of the Society for Promoting the Welfare of the Insane, chartered in 1882. She served for many years as president of that society. She was also instrumental in organizing the alumni association of her alma mater, serving for several years as its secretary and afterward as its presiding officer. She is a member of the Medico- Legal Society, the Woman's Legal Education Society, the State and County Homeopathic Medical Societies, and the American Obstetrical Society.
WRIGHT, Mrs. Julia McNair, author, born in Oswego, N. Y., 1st May, 1840. She is the daughter of John McNair, a well-known civil engineer of Scotch descent. She was carefully educated in private schools and seminaries. In 1859 she became the wife of Dr. William James Wright, the mathematician.
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JULIA MCNAIR WRIGHT.
She began her literary career at sixteen by the publication of short stories. Her published works include "Almost a Nun " (1867); "Priest and Nun" (1869); "Jug-or-Not" (1870); "Saints and Sinners" (1873); "The Early Church in Britain" (1874); "Bricks from Babel," a manual of ethnography (1876); "The Complete Home" (1879); "A Wife Hard Won," a novel (1882), and "The Nature Readers," four volumes (1887-91). Her works have been very popular. Most of her stories have been republished in Europe, in various languages, and several of them have appeared in Arabia. Mrs. Wright has never had a book that was a financial failure; all have done well. "The Complete Home" sold over one-hundred-thousand copies, and others have reached ten, twenty, thirty and fifty thousand. Since the organization of the National Temperance Society, she has been one of its most earnest workers and most popular authors. She has two children, both married. Her son is a distinguished young business man; her daughter. Mrs. J. Wright Whitcomb, a member of the Kansas bar, is a promising young author.
WRIGHT, Mrs. Laura M., physician, born in Royal Oak, Oakland county, Mich., 25th April, 1840. She is a descendant of Pilgrim stock, through both the parents of her mother. Her father, Joseph R. Wells, is of Welsh origin She inherited pluck and thrift and early developed an insatiable thirst for knowledge, while an unselfish labor for others became apparent in her childhood, and in active work in the Baptist Church, of which she early became a member. Later in life, still indefatigable in the pursuit of knowledge, she was graduated from two medical colleges, and has taken her place in the active field of professional life.
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LAURA M. WRIGHT.
Dr. Wright possesses a gentle but firm character, supported by perseverance and a strong conscience. Born of parents poor in this world's goods, but abounding in energy, frugality, good sense and superior management, of which she possesses a full share, she is ready now to give and extend the helping hand with even more than early helpfulness. She believes that genius consists in the sum of doing the little things about you well. As a local worker in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union ranks, she has been active and earnest. Her home is in New York City.
WRIGHT, Mrs. Marie Robinson, journalist, born in Newnan, Ga., 4th May, 1853. Her father, John Evans Robinson, was a cultured and wealthy planter. He was descended from an honorable English family, of which the knightly Sir George Evans was the head. Marie was a precocious girl, well matured in body and mind at the age of
