“We Wish Spiritually to Annex Athens”: Archaeology, Americans, and the Greek World in the Late 19th Century

On April 14, 1887, James Russell Lowell, an avid supporter of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA), expressed the sentiments of a sympathetic crowd by declaring “We wish spiritually to annex Athens.” This mission, inaugurated five years earlier with the ASCSA’s founding, entailed a renewed American interest and a growing American presence in the Greek capital that dovetailed with new U.S. diplomatic prerogatives, other nations’ archaeological ambitions, and local nationalists’ attempts to retain control over access to classical antiquities. But why did the Greek past spark so much interest among Americans in the late nineteenth century? How did Americans who travelled to Athens imagine and navigate this complex social, political, and cultural terrain? And how do the creation and activities of the ASCSA help us understand Americans’ engagement with the world prior to the twentieth century?

Using records from the archives of the Archaeological Institute of America and the ASCSA, this paper argues that the American archaeological community, motivated by a desire to compete with their Western European counterparts in uncovering and extolling the glories of a bygone civilization, established themselves as part of a transnational/transimperial network of scientists, devoted to the promotion of a shared past, that marginalized local experts and aspirations. Their undertakings, aided by representatives of the U.S. government, forged new American interests and investments in the Mediterranean world and laid the groundwork for deeper relationships between scientists and the state and for similar projects in other parts of the globe.