Richard Norton (February 9, 1872 – August 2, 1918) was an American fine art historian and archaeologist, specializing in classical antiquity, who was head of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, and a director for the Boston Museum of Fine Art, and the Archaeological Institute of America before World War I. From October 1914 he was the organizer and head of the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps, until its absorption by the American Army in September 1917. For his efforts he was awarded the Croix de Guerre (June 1915) and the Grand-Croix of the Legion of Honour (April 1917) by the French government.
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Early life
Norton was born February 9, 1872 in Dresden, Germany where his American parents were visiting at the time. He was the sixth and last child of Charles Eliot Norton and his wife Susan Sedgwick, who died 8 days after Norton's birth. When his family returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his father was professor of the History of Art at Harvard University, Norton attended the small private Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge. Norton was the only one of his siblings to follow his father's field of study. His father's fame may have helped open doors, but it also led to being overshadowed. Even after his father's death, newspaper articles reporting on Richard Norton's achievements would carry headlines with "Son of Charles Eliot Norton" rather than his own name.