John Kirtland Wright

Having completed a PhD in history at Harvard University, in 1920 Wright was employed as librarian by the American Geographical Society; between the years of 1920 and 1956 he also served as an AGS editor, personal academic contributor, and eventually director.

As a result of his prolific academic and professional life, three main themes have emerged in John K. Wright’s published works.

While at one point the discipline of geography ignored the influence of subjectivity in human and physical patterns, John Kirtland Wright brought to the forefront the significance of the mind and the imagination in affecting scientific research.

He discovered and documented the influences of various religious perspectives on geography, with a very keen interest in Gothic and medieval representations that signified both divine and earthly geographic beauty (Wright 1965).

In addition, he wrote prolifically on the Greek and Roman geographic influences, largely pertaining to the fifteenth- century map of the world by Giovanni Leardo (Wright, AGS, 1928).