It was discovered on 14 July 1947, by American astronomer Carl Wirtanen at Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton near San Jose, California.

[4] In July 2005, a rotational lightcurve of Wright was obtained by astronomers Reiner Stoss, Jaime Nomen, Salvador Sánchez and Raoul Behrend at the Mallorca Observatory, Spain.

[8][9] In July 2014, another, concurring lightcurve with a period of 5.28796 hours and an amplitude of 0.53 was obtained by Robert Stephens at the Trojan Station of the Center for Solar System Studies (U81) in Landers, southern California.

[10] This minor planet was named in memory of American astronomer William Hammond Wright (1871–1959), staff member and later director of the discovering Lick Observatory until 1942.

A pioneer in astrophysics, his large, wide-field 20-inch Carnegie double astrograph built for the observatory's proper motion survey (first light in 1941), was using distant galaxies ("spiral nebulae") as object references.