Muriel Wright
Muriel Wright
"This remarkable, learned, gracious and indeed unique woman has brought to the heritage of her native land, now the state of Oklahoma, a luster that cannot and will not dim."
Biography
Descended from distinguished Choctaw and missionary families, Dr. Muriel Hazel Wright was born in the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory in 1889 and went to Wheaton Seminary (now Wheaton College) in Massachusetts. She graduated with a teaching degree from East Central University in Ada and did her post graduate work at Columbia University in New York. She began serving as a public school teacher and principal in several schools across Oklahoma in 1912 and participated in Choctaw Tribal affairs while focusing her study of the culture of various Indian Tribes of Oklahoma. She was the editor of the Chronicles of Oklahoma from 1943 to 1973. Her most prominent work came as the author of numerous special articles and features about Oklahoma and Native American history that appeared across the country in newspapers and magazines. She authored such important historical works as The Story of Oklahoma (1924-1939), Oklahoma: A History of the States and Its People (1929); Our Oklahoma (1939); Springplace, Moravian Mission, Cherokee Nation (1940); and Civil War Sites in Oklahoma (1969).
Fun fact
Muriel Wright’s paternal grandfather was Rev. Allen Wright, principal Chief of the Choctaws from 1866 to 1870 who came to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears and gave the state of Oklahoma its name.
Oklahoma connections
Wright was born in Lehigh, Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory in 1889.