Elizabeth Hazelton Haight

Elizabeth Hazelton Haight
Born (1872-12-11)December 11, 1872
Auburn, New York, United States
Died (1964-11-15)November 15, 1964
Beacon, New York, United States
Occupation Academic, scholar
Academic background
Alma mater Cornell University
Thesis  (1909)
Academic work
Discipline Classics
Sub-discipline Latin literature, Greek poetry
Institutions Vassar College

Elizabeth Hazelton Haight (February 11, 1872 - November 15, 1964) was an American classical scholar and academic who specialised in Latin teaching. She spent most of her career working for Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Career

"Hazel" Haight was born in Auburn, to John White Haight and Helen M. (Meeker) Haight. Her father was one of the leading businessmen in Auburn during his lifetime.[1]

Haight matriculated at Vassar College in 1890, and was commencement speaker for her undegraduate class, graduating from Vassar in 1894. She also edited the Yearbook for that year.[2] She received her AM, also from Vassar, in 1899, with a dissertation entitled "Conditional Sentences in the Iliad and the Odyssey."[2] She then moved to Cornell University, where she studied with Charles E. Bennett, and received her PhD with a thesis titled "The Sea in Greek Poetry" in 1909.[3][2] During her graduate study she held teaching posts in preparatory schools in New York State.[2] She returned to Vassar to join its faculty in 1902 and became chair of the Latin department from 1923 until her retirement in 1942.[4] She was promoted to professor in 1922, 12 years after becoming an associate professor, partly due to the strong written support of Grace Macurdy, another pioneering female classicist at Vassar.[5] In her correspondance, Macurdy praised Haight for her "executive ability" and described her as a teacher "whose enthusiasm and genuine love for her subject infect her classes."[5]

Haight died in Beacon, Dutchess County and is buried in Fort Hill Cemetery.[6]

Haight was the first woman to chair the Advisory Council of the then American School of Classical Studies at Rome. She was also elected as president of the American Philological Association in 1934 - the second woman to hold that post.[7] She gave her presidential address on "Prose Fiction in the Augustan Age."[2] During the mid-1930s, many scholars were emigrating from Germany under Nazi rule; Haight organised a programme of these visiting scholars to Vassar College.[3]

During her long residency at Vassar College, Haight opened and voluntarily curated the Vassar Classical Museum and bought objects and inscriptions for it. This appreciation for the contributions of archaeology to a classical education was described by Donald Lateiner as "ahead of its time".[2] She also wrote a history of the college, along with James Monroe Taylor, its president from 1886 to 1914.[8]

Selected publications

  • The Autobiography and Letters of Matthew Vassar. New York, 1916.
  • Life and Letters of James M. Taylor. New York, 1919. OCLC 3433918
  • Italy Old and New. New York, 1922.
  • Horace and His Art of Enjoyment. New York, 1925. OCLC 250063956
  • Apuleius and His Influence. New York, 1927. Nachdruck, 1963. OCLC 367528670
  • Romance in the Latin Elegiac Poets. New York, 1932. OCLC 938038
  • Essays on Ancient Fiction. New York, 1936. Nachdruck Freeport (New York), 1966. OCLC 39970129
  • The Roman Use of Anecdotes in Cicero, Livy and the Satirists. New York, 1940.
  • Essays on the Greek Romances. New York 1943. OCLC 251464618; Nachdruck Port Washington (New York), 1965.
  • More Essays on the Greek Romances. New York, 1945. OCLC 459716756
  • The Symbolism of the House Door in Classical Poetry. New York, 1950. OCLC 906181909
  • Aspects of Symbolism in the Latin Anthology and in Classical and Renaissance Art. New York, 1952.
  • Pseudo-Callisthenes, Life of Alexander. New York, 1955. OCLC 459039241

References

  1. ↑ "John White Haight (1815-1895) - Find A Grave..." www.findagrave.com. 27 October 1975.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lateiner, D. (1996–1997). "Elizabeth Hazelton Haight (1872-1964)". The Classical World. 90 (2/3): 153–166.
  3. 1 2 Erck, M. E.; Erck, T. H.; Ryberg, I. S. "Haight, Elizabeth Hazelton, 1872-1964 - Memorial Minute". Vassar College. Retrieved 2017-05-09.
  4. ↑ "Elizabeth Hazelton Haight Dies". New York Times Archives. Retrieved 2017-05-09.
  5. 1 2 McManus, Barbara (2017). The Drunken Duchess of Vassar: Grace Harriet Macurdy, Pioneering Feminist Classical Scholar by Barbara McManus. Ohio State Press. p. 120.
  6. ↑ "Elizabeth Hazelton Haight - Find A Grave".
  7. ↑ "HAIGHT, Elizabeth Hazelton". Database of Classical Scholars. Retrieved 2017-05-09.
  8. ↑ Haight, Elizabeth Hazelton; Taylor, James Monroe (1915). Vassar. Palala Press. ISBN 9781347241851.
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