Tanzer, Helen H. (Helen Henrietta), 1876-1961

Helen Tanzer studied archaeology under Dr. David Moore Robinson at the Johns Hopkins University and received her Ph.D. in 1929. She taught Latin and Greek at Hunter College and Brooklyn College. Her scholarship focused on ancient Roman culture. Tanzer translated ancient texts, edited collections for classroom use, and published two books, The Villas of Pliny the Younger (1924), and The Common People of Pompeii (1939). She retired from teaching in 1937. During her career, she developed a personal collection of over 1,000 ancient Greco-Roman artifacts. In 1939, she donated her collection to the Johns Hopkins University Archaeological Museum (now the Archaeological Collection), which was then under the direction of her former advisor, Dr. Robinson. Tanzer died on December 23, 1961, in Washington, DC.

Margaret Barclay Wilson was born to Alexander and Margaret (Inglis) Wilson in Dunfermline, Scotland, on August 28, 1863. In 1870 she immigrated to the United States with her parents. Wilson graduated from the Normal College (later Hunter College) of the City of New York in 1884. She taught in the New York public schools until 1887, when she began instructing mathematics at the Normal College. She received an M.D. from the Women's Medical College of New York Infirmary in 1893, an A.B. from Hunter College in 1901, and an M.S. from New York University in 1902. She taught physiology and hygiene at Hunter College from 1893 until her retirement in 1933. She also served as honorary librarian from 1915 to 1927. In 1915, she published the Andrew Carnegie Anthology. Carnegie and Wilson, both natives of Dunfermline, Scotland, were friends.