AWOG’s 1st President
by: Katerina Sirouni
Elizabeth ‘Libbie’ Pierce Blegen was an American archaeologist, educator and writer born on June 26, 1888 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and received her PhD from Columbia and her MA in Latin from Vassar College in New York.
During her studies at Vassar, she met Ida Thallon, a person that had a profound influence on her life and work. It is not known exactly when the two women formed a romantic relationship, but by the late 1910s, they were known to their families and friends as a couple.
Elizabeth Pierce Blegen (l), Ida Thallon Hill & Elizabeth Pierce Blegen (r), source: ASCSA Archives
In 1921, Pierce travelled to Greece with Thallon, a trip which inspired her to enroll in the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. eative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
When attending, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens - ASCSA, Pierce became friends with the school's director, Bert Hodge Hill, and archaeologist Carl Blegen who facilitated the rehabilitation of Greek museums as a liaison between the Economic Cooperation Administration of the Marshall Plan and the Greek Government.
Pierce and Blegen's friendship quickly turned into romance and Blegen proposed marriage; Pierce initially accepted but then broke off the engagement as she did not wish to end her relationship with Thallon. Soon, a plan was formed by Blegen, Pierce, and Hodge Hill (who appears o have had unreciprocated romantic feelings for Blegen) that Hodge Hill and Thallon would marry at the same time as Pierce and Blegen. The four archaeologists referred to themselves as "the Family", "the Quartet", and "the Pro Par" ("Professional Partnership").
Carl and Elizabeth Blegen, source: ASCSA Archives
Carl and Elizabeth were also known for hosting large parties to honor members of the American Mission for Aid to Greece at their home in Kolonaki on Ploutarchou 9. Elizabeth, was also known for her initiative in organizing a Helleno-American Woman’s Club (AWOG) and served as its first president after it was founded in 1948 by Lucretia Louise Del Valle Grady, spouse of the U.S. Ambassador to Greece, Henry Grady.
Today the Quartet rest side by side at the 1st Cemetery of Athens, their unity an enduring monument to the love of four remarkable individuals who not only changed the archaeological world in Greece but cared deeply for their adopted land.
Blegen and Hill in 1915 (l), Pierce and Thallon in 1920 (r), source: Cincinnati Public Library
THE LEGACY of ELIZABETH PIERCE BLEGEN
In 1922, Elizabeth spent a year visiting the archaeological sites to “study material at firsthand for her teaching.” That year, she presented her first and only lecture for the Archaeological Institute of America: “A Daedalid in the Skimatari Museum.”
She then had an idea to write updates with reference to the museums of Greece, which is how the “Newsletter from Athens” was born and which she would write for the American Journal of Archaeology until 1952. Her reports were “the results of close, careful, understanding first-hand observation and discussion with the excavators whom she grew to know well and who admired her and trusted her with their latest discoveries and thoughts about the excavations.” These notes were and remain invaluable to the students of Archaeology as they often revealed new discoveries many years before they were fully published. Their publication in a readily available American archaeological journal means that this glimpse into the latest happenings in Greek archaeology was easily available to both student and scholar.
Once married, Elizabeth participated fully in her husband’s work. She gathered information on prehistoric pottery in museums that Carl Blegen had not yet visited, putting together bibliography and participating in his excavations at Prosymna (1927-28), Troy (1932-38), and Pylos (1939, 1952-58). With Ida Thallon Hill as trench partner, she participated at all his excavations in the digging as well as in cataloguing the material from the excavations, so that it was available for study by specialists. At Prosymna, she herself studied the jewelry and ornament and contributed that chapter to the final publication.
Carl and Elizabeth Blegen, source: Arcadia Portal
This type of assistance was not only given to her husband, but also to many others in the field. Most prominent among the latter is Gisela Richter who often relied on Elizabeth’s eye or ability to see artifacts in Greek museums to check on details or to photography material that would appear in her books. Her help, however, was not restricted to those scholars already established in the field, but was also given to first-year students.
Aside from her work in archaeology, Elizabeth was also involved in a number of professional and women’s organizations that demonstrated both her love of her chosen field and her interest in seeing women advance professionally. Aside from AWOG, she was an active member of The Hellenic American Women’s Club, The American Association of University Women, The American Historical Association, and The Archaeological Institute of America.
Elizabeth Pierce Blegen deeded the Family's home on Ploutarchou 9 in Kolonaki, which was listed in 1983 to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, which also holds her archives, including correspondence, her will, diaries, photographs, and watercolours. The building is now the home of the J.F. Costopoulos charitable foundation.
Elizabeth ‘Libbie’ Pierce Blegen, source: World History Encyclopedia
In her will, a trust fund left to Vassar College enabled the establishment in 1975 of the Blegen Distinguished Visiting Professorship in Classics. In 2011, Rachel Kitzinger, Professor of Classics and Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs at Vassar, summarized Pierce Blegen's importance and influence on Vassar's Department of Greek and Roman Studies:
“Of all the distinguished women classicists who were involved early on with the Vassar department, Elizabeth Pierce Blegen has had the most long-lasting effect on the department. Her will bequeathed an endowment to the department to support research in classical antiquity and has allowed the department to bring a research fellow or distinguished professor to the college every year... to teach a course and do research“
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