Sophie Bell Wright 1866–1912 – Genealogical Records

Sources

Genealogy Event 1
Event Type: Birth
Event Date: 5 Jun 1866
Event Place: Louisiana
Record Source:
[1] New Orleans, Louisiana, Death Records Index, 1804-1949, Orleans Death Indices 1908-1917; Volume: 155; Page: 163
[2] 1880 United States Federal Census, Year: 1880; Census Place: New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana; Roll: 458; Page: 52D; Enumeration District: 003
[3] U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current

Genealogy Event 2
Event Type: Residence
Event Date: 1880
Event Place: New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Record Source: 1880 United States Federal Census, Year: 1880; Census Place: New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana; Roll: 458; Page: 52D; Enumeration District: 003

Genealogy Event 3
Event Type: Custom Event

Genealogy Event 4
Event Type: Custom Event

Genealogy Event 5
Event Type: Custom Event

Genealogy Event 6
Event Type: Custom Event
Record Source: Sophie B. Wright
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sophie B. Wright, 1909
Sophie Bell Wright (1866 '96 6 April 1912) was a New Orleans, Louisiana, educator.

Wright was born to A Formerly Well-To-Do Family That Had Become Impoverished As A Result Of The American Civil War. Wright's father, Malcolm H. Wright, was born in Dumfries in southwest Scotland. As a small child, Wright survived a fall with spinal and pelvic injuries that resulted in lifelong physical disabilities. In her teens, she began teaching. She started several free schools and the city's "Home for Incurables," a care facility for disabled and gravely ill patients.

Wright was also active in the Prison reform movement, projects to build public playgrounds, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She was president of the New Orleans Woman's Club, and published a collection of advice essays, Heart to Heart Talks (1908).

She was buried in Metairie Cemetery. New Orleans has a school and a street named after her as well as a statue of her on Magazine Street.

External links[edit]
Biography on Best of New Orleans site
Biography on people of Scots descent site
Reproduction of 1909 Boston newspaper article on Library of Congress site
Biography on Louisiana Leaders site
Categories: 1866 births1912 deathsEducation in New Orleans, LouisianaAmerican educatorsPeople from New Orleans, Louisiana
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Genealogy Event 7
Event Type: Custom Event
Record Source: THURSDAY, JUNE 05, 2008

June 5: Sophie Bell Wright (1866-1912)
[Visual description: A statue of Sophie Bell Wright, in New Orleans. Against a background of trees, there's a grey seated figure, leaning a bit to her right, wears a shawl and long skirt; she is seated, holding a book.]

Sophie Bell Wright fell, hard, when she was three years old. It was 1869, and in her time and place (New Orleans), there wasn't much to be done for the little girl's injured spine and pelvis. The home solution? She was strapped to a chair for the next few years, in the hopes that immobilizing her would bring healing. At age 9, she was able to get around on crutches and wearing a steel brace; for the first time, Sophie attended school. Five years later, Sophie B. Wright (like a lot of 14-year-olds) was tired of being a student. So she opened her own "Day School for Girls," using some discarded benches to furnish a room in her mother's house. By 18, she was renting a larger space to accommodate all her pupils, and she had opened a free night school for (white) daytime workers, too.

Sophie Bell Wright worked for temperance, playgrounds, and prison reform, and was president of the New Orleans Women's Club. During a yellow fever epidemic in 1897, she suspended classes and turned her schoolrooms into makeshift infirmary. She published a collection of essays based on her advice to students. In 1903 the Times-Picayune made her the first woman honored with their "Loving Cup" for outstanding social contributions. In 1904, she raised funds to build a home for "crippled orphans" in the city, and later raised funds to expand a specialist hospital. In 1912, a city school was named for her, the first public building in the city named for a woman, shortly before her death from heart disease at age 46.

The statue of Wright pictured above was created by Enrique Alferez and erected in 1988, in Sophie B. Wright Park in New Orleans. Her nearby home is also a historic landmark.
POSTED BY PENNY L. RICHARDS AT 12:59 AM
LABELS: BIOGRAPHY, BIRTHDAY, EDUCATION
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Genealogy Event 8
Event Type: Custom Event
Record Source: Mini Bios of People of Scots Descent
Sophie B. Wright

The Wright family in Louisiana has been made famous by the wonderful career of Sophie B. Wright. She was born in New Orleans on June 5, 1866, when all over the South there was ruin and discouragement. Her parents, accustomed to luxury, were reduced to poverty, and little opportunity for making a living. At this time, under these circumstances, in his home, came Sophie B. Wright, who, under great handicaps, was destined to become one of the great factors in bringing order out of chaos and hope out of despair, and in giving an education to hundreds who otherwise would have grown up in ignorance.
When 3 years old she fell, injuring her back and hips so that for 6 years she was strapped in a chair. When 9 years of age she was able to hobble around on crutches and went to school, where, in 5 years, she learned all the public schools of the city could give her. Miss Sophie B. was then 14 years old, small for her age, crippled almost beyond endurance and only an 8th grader, but she borrowed some unused benches from a public school building to fill a room in her mother's cottage and hung out her sign "Day School for Girls." This was the beginning of a school career which afterward became one of the great educational influences in this part of the country.

This school was of necessity confined to elementary pupils, but as it gradually grew, Miss Sophie saw that a day would soon come when she could carry her pupils no farther, so she arranged at a normal school to teach mathematics in return for instruction in languages, and did this in addition to carrying on her own school. At 16 years of age she was teaching in 2 schools and studying in one, and her own school growing all the time. Before she was 18, her school outgrew its quarters, so she found a large house at $100 a month rent. She signed the lease without money to pay 1 month rent, but succeeded in borrowing this $100, for which she had to pay 12 per cent a month interest. She thus secured her large building, and her school continued to grow, and in spite of the high rent and high interest, she paid all and put away a little money in the bank besides.

In those days New Orleans was poor and hundreds of young men and even children were working in shops and factories with no educational advantage, and to all such the door of opportunity was opened by a peculiar circumstance. A circus became stranded in the city, and among those left almost penniless was a young acrobat about 25 years old. He wanted to prepare for a civil service examination, but there was no visible way to do so for one entirely without means. He walked the streets seeking some way to meet his difficulty, when his eye caught the sign, ''Day School for Girls.'' He stated his case to the little crippled mistress of the school, and she said if he could come in the evening she would teach him free of charge. Thus she opened the doors of her school to the stranded young acrobat, and this was the beginning of what grew to be a great free night school, which increased in numbers and importance until it outgrew the building in which it was held and passed over to the city, which has 8 night schools in its system and over 50 teachers.

The Day School for Girls has grown into the Home institute, a day and boarding school for young ladies and children, which, although Miss Sophie B. Wright has passed to her reward, is ably continued under the directions of Misses Jennie K. and Mary R., sisters of Miss Sophie B., whose death occurred June 10,1912. The school is located at 1440-1446 Camp street, and is thoroughly modern and hygienic in all its appointments. It has an able corps of teachers and the conduct as well as the attainment of each pupil is cared for by the directors of the school. The curriculum has been worked out with much care. Arithmetic and grammar are studied through the entire course and either French or Latin is an absolute requirement of every pupil in a regular course. The boarders all wear uniforms and simplicity in dress is always aimed at. Pupils accompanied by teachers attend lectures, concerts and places of amusement, but those of the boarding department cannot leave the school without a chaperon. In every way the health, conduct and attainment of the pupils is looked after much more effectively than in the average home.

Miss Jennie K. and Mary R. Wright, teachers, directors of the Home institute, are daughters of William H. and Mary S. (Bell) Wright. William H. Wright was born of Scotch parentage in Montreal, Canada, but came to New Orleans when quite young. He served through the whole 4 years of the Civil war on the Confederate side. He was first in the navy, then in the 14th Louisiana infantry and afterwards transferred to Ogden's battallion. His father was born in Dumfries and his mother in Edinburg, Scotland. Mary S. Bell was born on Oak Bluff plantation, in St. Mary parish, La. Her ancestors were all planters, her father having been a native of Tennessee and her mother of Missouri. Besides the Misses Jennie K. and Mary R. Wright, the other children of Mr. and Mrs. William H. Wright were: Sophie B. Wright, founder of Home Institute and the free night school; Mrs. C. W. Kay, William H. Wright, Salaun, expert accountant; Malcolm B. Wright, of Hammond, La. Miss Jennie K. Wright belongs to the King's Daughters, to Stonewall Jackson Chapter, U. D. C., to the Alumnae association of the city normal school, from which school she graduated about 1879. Miss Mary R. Wright belongs to the Home Institute Alumnae, the King's Daughters and the Woman s club.

Source: Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (volume 3), pp. 581-583. Edited by Alcee Fortier, Lit.D. Published in 1914, by Century Historical Association.

Genealogy Event 9
Event Type: Death
Event Date: 10 Jun 1912
Event Place: New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Record Source:
[1] New Orleans, Louisiana, Death Records Index, 1804-1949, Orleans Death Indices 1908-1917; Volume: 155; Page: 163
[2] U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current

Genealogy Event 10
Event Type: Burial
Event Place: Metaire Cemetary, Metaire, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana
Record Source: U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current