Elizabeth Blegen

Academic career

In her first year at Vassar, Pierce met Ida Thallon, who was to have a profound influence on her life and work. Thallon was a professor in the Department of Greek and Roman Studies, who taught Pierce Greek and Latin as a freshman. It is not known exactly when the two women formed a romantic relationship, but when Pierce returned to Vassar to teach art history in 1915 after leaving for graduate work at Columbia University, she and Thallon started living in adjacent rooms in Davison House on campus, and by the late 1910s, they were known to their families and friends as a couple. She was granted her PhD from Columbia in 1922. Her PhD dissertation continued her work from her Master's on Pollio. Troy (1932–1938); and of the southwestern part of the palace and part of the nearby lower town (1954–56, 1958–62). The two also worked together on Hodge Hill's excavations at Lapithos (Cyprus) and Corinth, where they catalogued new finds in collaboration with Elizabeth Van Buren, a specialist in terracottas. During her first year of marriage, Pierce Blegen also lectured on sculpture at ASCSA. Archaeologist Lucy Shoe Merritt described these reports in her personal correspondence (May 4, 1997) as "the results of close, careful understanding, first-hand observation and discussion with the excavators whom she grew to know so well and who admired and trusted her with their latest discoveries and thoughts about them [the excavations]". Pierce Blegen was involved in many American and Greek archaeological and women's professional organisations, including American Women in Greece, the Hellenic American women’s club, the American Association of University Women, the American Historical Association, and the Archaeological Institute of America. She died ten years later on September 21, 1966, in Athens;

Legacy In 1963, Elizabeth Pierce Blegen deeded the Family's home at 9 Ploutarchou to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, which also holds her archives, including correspondence, her will, diaries, photographs, and watercolours. A trust fund left to Vassar College in her will 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. Until 2008, Vassar's LGBTQ Center was located in Blegen House.

Pierce Blegen is remembered for her role in disseminating news of Athenian archaeological discoveries, thanks to her close relationships with other archaeologists conducting excavations; for the assistance she gave to both academic colleagues and to students; and her promotion of women's professional advancement through her involvement in a range of women's organisations.

Selected bibliography

"A Roman Colony in the Alps: Aosta", Art and Archeology (1922), p. 83–90 "A Daedalid in the Skimatari Museum", American Journal of Archaeology, Vol 28. (1924), p. 267–275. "News Items from Athens", and "Archaeological Discoveries from Greece", American Journal of Archaeology (1925–1952) 'The jewellery and ornaments', in Carl W. Blegen, Prosymna, the Helladic settlement preceding the Argive Heraeum (Cambridge University Press, 1937) "Recent Discoveries on Greek and Roman Art", Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1942), p. 63–76