About Lizzie...

Who was Elizabeth Breckenridge?  

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Breckenridge was a Black woman who lived with and worked as a paid domestic servant for the family of Professor Theophilus Wylie, the younger cousin of IU President Andrew Wylie. Theophilus and his family moved into Wylie House after Andrew’s wife died in 1859. Lizzie lived in the home with the second Wylie family for more than fifty years, having begun working for them as a young teenager. While little is known about Lizzie, her childhood, or her life in the Wylie home beyond occasional references in Wylie family archival materials, research continues to piece together the story of her life through vital records and government documents. Among what is known: she was not enslaved, she had family living nearby, she was literate and intelligent, and she studied astronomy. She loved the stars.  

The point of Stargazing is not to fabricate Lizzie’s life or the missing archives. Instead, it uses the arts as a vehicle to create apertures and visions that locate Lizzie’s story within a larger narrative at Wylie House, and in Bloomington and Indiana; to connect Lizzie’s life to our own through her imagined dreams; and to imagine how we all intersect with ideas that stretch boundaries and borders. 

A historical summary of Lizzie's life is availabe on another Wylie House digital exhibit entitled Elizabeth Breckenridge, 1843-1910. Tour the museum virtually to visit the attic room interpreted for Lizzie. A developing social network model helps us visualize the relationships and community she had with other people of color living in Monroe County, Indiana during her lifetime.