Marcia Wright


Marcia Wright is an American historian and professor emerita of history at Columbia University in New York City. She taught history at Columbia from 1966 to 2008. Wright was the first woman to be hired by Columbia as an assistant professor of history. Her work centers on the social, ecological, and public health history of Africa.
Wright graduated with her bachelor's degree, from Wellesley College in 1957, before moving on to Yale University, where she received her master's degree in 1958. She obtained her Ph.D. from London University in 1966.

Selected publications

German Missions in Tanganyika, 1891-1941, African Women and the Law: Historical Perspectives, co-edited with Margaret Jean Hay Women's Health and Apartheid : the Health of Women and Children and the Future of Progressive Primary Health Care in Southern Africa, co-edited with Zena Stein & Jean Scandlyn
  • ''Strategies of Slaves and Women in East-Central Africa.''

Articles and book chapters