Elizabeth Washburn Wright.

About Elizabeth Washburn Wright

Elizabeth Washburn Wright was an anti-opium campaigner in the United States during the early twentieth century, a passion which she carried with her to lead the United States' anti-opium campaign of 1908 alongside the famous Bishop Charles Brent. She was the first woman in the history of the United States ever granted plenipotentiary powers abroad. She represented the interests of the United States at the League of Nations Opium Advisory Committee (OAC), and also worked with Stephen G. Porter and her counterparts at the OAC to create the organization that would eventually become the International Narcotics Control Board. With her counterparts in the international community, Dame Rachel Crowdy and Helen Howell Moorhead, she is considered an "honorary gentleman" of what had been dubbed the "Gentlemen's Club" of the international narcotics control regime. Where Bishop Brent was open about his religious frameworks as a facet of his occupation, Wright's religious Christian motivations were rarely mentioned, but were indeed one of her primary motivations in seeking the complete ban on the international opium trade. Rachel Crowdy, once while speaking to a crowd, placed Wright's efforts alongside those of Marie Curie as an example of women who paved history. Wright was involved in nearly every facet of the fight against opium in the early twentieth century, especially in playing a key role in the creation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) alongside Levi G. Nutt and Stephen Porter. She knew and often debated against most everyone involved in international diplomacy related to narcotics enforcement in her era, and especially used her connections to campaign for her cause, positioning herself in key positions to effect change.