George G. Wright

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For other people with this name, see George Wright.

George Grover Wright (March 24, 1820 - January 11, 1896) was a United States Senator from Iowa. Born in Bloomington, Indiana, he attended private schools and graduated from Indiana University at Bloomington in 1839. He studied law in Rockville, Indiana and was admitted to the bar in 1840, commencing practice in Keosauqua, Iowa Territory. He was prosecuting attorney of Van Buren County, Iowa in 1847-1848 and was a member of the Iowa Senate from 1849 to 1851. He was a justice of the Iowa Supreme Court from 1854 to 1870, and served as president of the Iowa Agricultural Society from 1860 to 1865. He moved to Des Moines in 1865 and was one of the founders of the University of Iowa's College of Law. He was a professor in the law department of the State university from 1865 to 1871, and was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate, serving from March 4, 1871, to March 3, 1877; he was not a candidate for reelection. While in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary (Forty-second Congress) and a member of the Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment (Forty-third Congress) and Committee on Claims (Forty-fourth Congress). He resumed the practice of his profession in Des Moines and also engaged in banking; from 1887 to 1888 he was president of the American Bar Association 1887-1888. He died in Des Moines in 1896; interment was in Woodland Cemetery.