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Elizabeth Pierce Blegen

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Elizabeth Pierce Blegen
Born(1888-06-26)June 26, 1888
Allegheny, Pennsylvania
DiedSeptember 21, 1966(1966-09-21) (aged 78)
Athens, Greece
EducationVassar College
Columbia University[1]
Known forBlegen Distinguished Visiting Research Professorship in Classics at Vassar College[2]
SpouseCarl Blegen
Scientific career
FieldsArchaeology

Elizabeth Denny Pierce Blegen (June 26, 1888 – September 21, 1966) was an American archeologist, educator and writer who contributed the quarterly report, "Newsletter from Athens" for the American Journal of Archeology from 1925 to 1952.

Early life and education

Elizabeth Denny Pierce was born June 26, 1888 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania to Flora McKnight and William Lemmex Pierce. She attended Vassar College from 1906 to 1910, and in 1912 she obtained an MA in Latin.[1][3]

Academic career

In her first year at Vassar, Blegen met Ida Hill who was to have a profound influence on her life and work. Hill was a Professor in the Department of Greek and Roman Studies.[4] The two women formed an intimate student/mentor relationship that developed into an intimate personal relationship which continued after Blegen left for graduate work at Columbia University.[4] When Blegen returned to Vassar to teach art history in 1915, the two friends started living in adjacent rooms in Davidson house on campus.[5]

From 1915 until 1922, Blegen taught Art History at Vassar.[3] She was granted her PhD from Columbia in 1922. Her dissertation as well as her Master's thesis was on the intellectual life of Gaius Asinius Pollio, a Roman Consul (40 BC) and historian.[1] She also was an assistant curator at Vassar's Art Gallery for that seven-year period.[1] She travelled to Greece with her friend Ida Hill in 1921. Her time in Greece inspired her to enroll in the American School of Classical Studies (ASCSA).

Blegen attended ASCSA from 1922 to 1923 where she became friends with the school's director, Bert Hodge Hill and archeologist Carl Blegen. Carl Blegen taught prehistory and general topography classes at the school.[3] Elizabeth and Carl Blegen's friendship quickly turned into romance and Carl Blegen proposed marriage.[4] Elizabeth Blegen returned to the United States and spent the spring of 1924 working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[3] Conflicted over ending her relationship with Hill, Carl Blegen and Elizabeth formed a plan in collaboration with Carl Blegen's friend and fellow archeologist, Bert Hodge Hill that would allow the four friends to live together. The idea was for Elizabeth and Carl Blegen to marry and Hill to propose to Ida Hill. The two couples married in 1924.[4]

Archeological career

The four archeologists and friends had a strong and interconnected relationship both professionally and personally. Ida Hill and Blegen often worked together on excavations, cataloguing materials and publishing findings for both their husbands.[6][3] During her first year of marriage, Blegen taught sculpture classes at ASCS. One of her first projects with Hill was assisting her in the cataloguing of new finds from the excavation of Corinth, in collaboration with Elizabeth Van Buren, a specialist in terracottas.[6] Elizabeth Blegen participated in Carl Blegen's excavations at Prosymna (1927–1928), Troy (1932–1938) and Pylos (1939, 1952–1958).[1]

Beginning in 1925 and continuing until 1952, Blegen authored the "Newsletter from Athens", a regular contribution to the American Journal of Archeology. In the personal correspondence of archeologist Lucy Shoe Merritt (May 4, 1997,) she described Blegen's newsletter: "Her reports were the results of close, careful understanding, first-hand observation and discussion with the excavators whom she grew to know so well and who admired and trusted her with their latest discoveries and thoughts about them (the excavations).[1]

In 1929, Blegen purchased a house on 9 Ploutarchou Street in Athens, a family home for the four friends who referred to themselves as "The Quartet" [4] The house became a popular meeting place for archeologists, students of all foreign schools, diplomats, Vassar alumnae, Greek scholars, Fulbright scholars, and the staff of the American embassy.[7]

During World War II, Bert Hodge Hill remained in Athens to look after the home on Ploutarchou Street while Ida Hill moved to the United States with the Blegens for the duration of the war. The three friends lived in Cincinnati where Carl Blegen was a professor of classical archeology at the University of Cincinnati[7]

Blegen's final work in field excavation was at Pylos in 1958. That year she had a debilitating stroke that confined her to a wheelchair for the remainder of her life. Her friend and mentor Ida Hill had died four years previously in 1954. Bert Hodge Hill died in 1958.[8] In 1963, Elizabeth Blegen deeded their home to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.[3] She died Sept 21, 1966 in Athens.[3] Carl Blegen died in 1971.[1] The four archeologists and friends are buried next to each other in the First Cemetery of Athens.[3][8][9]

Legacy

In 2011, Rachel Kitzinger, professor of classics and dean of Planning and Academic Affairs summarized Elizabeth Blegen's importance and influence on Vassar's Department of Greek and Roman Studies: "Of all the distinguished women classicists who were involved early on with the Vassar department, Elizabeth Pierce Blegen has had the most long-lasting effect on the department. Her will bequeathed an endowment to the department to support research in classical antiquity and has allowed the department to bring a research fellow or distinguished professor to the college every year to teach a course and do research."[10]

Selected bibliography

  • "A Roman Colony in the Alps: Aosta", Art and Archeology, (1922), p. 83–90
  • "A Daedalid in the Skimatari Museum", American Journal of Archeology, Vol 28. (1924), p. 267–275.
  • "Newsletter from Greece", American Journal of Archeology, (1925–1952)
  • "Recent Discoveries on Greek and Roman Art", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, (1942), p. 63–76

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Langridge-Noti, Elizabeth. "Elizabeth Pierce Blegen (1888–1966)" (PDF). Breaking Ground: Women in Old World Archeology. Brown University. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  2. ^ Vassar. "Classicist Lora L. Holland examines the position of women: a short history of sex and scholarship in Roman religion. April 2010". Vassar College. Vassar. Retrieved 27 March 2017.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h ASCSA. "Elizabeth Pierce Blegen Papers (1888–1966)". American School of Classical Studies in Athens. ASCSA. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  4. ^ a b c d e Bolster, Ruth. "Blegens leave unconventional legacy as scholars and family". Vassar College. Retrieved 23 March 2017 – via Vassar News Archive.
  5. ^ Vogeikoff-Brogan, Natalia (2015). Carl W. Blegen: Personal and Archeological Narratives. Lockwood Press. p. 87. ISBN 1-937040-22-4.
  6. ^ a b Vogeikoff, Natalia. "Ida Thallon Hill (1875–1954)" (PDF). Breaking Ground: Women in Old World Archeology. Brown University. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  7. ^ a b Haight, Elizabeth Hazelton. "From Alumnae House to Acropolis". Vassar College. Retrieved 26 March 2017 – via Vassar Newspaper Archive.
  8. ^ a b ASCSA. "Bert Hodge Hill Papers". The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Retrieved 23 March 2017.
  9. ^ Vogeikoff-Brogan, Natalia. "The End of the Quartet: the Day the Music Stopped at Ploutarchou 9". From the Archivists Notebook, November 1, 2015. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
  10. ^ Kitzinger, Rachel. "The History of Greek and Roman Studies at Vassar College, January 2011". Vassar Collage. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
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