Susanna Wright (August 4, 1697 – December 1, 1784) was an 18th-century colonial English American poet, pundit, botanist, business owner, and legal scholar who was influential in the political economy of the Province of Pennsylvania, one of the Thirteen Colonies that ultimately engaged in the American Revolution and founded the United States.

Wright was born in Warrington in Lancashire, England, on August 4, 1697, to the Quaker businessman John Wright and Patience Gibson. She was the eldest of two brothers, John Jr. and James (who was not born until 1714), and two younger sisters, Elizabeth and Patience.

In 1714, her entire family left for the Province of Pennsylvania in what was then British America. Her youngest brother, James was born in 1714 in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Her mother died around 1721. As the eldest child, Wright largely raised her brothers and sisters, especially James, who was 16 years younger than her. Around 1724, her father began exploring the Conejohela Valley, and he, Susanna, John and James, along with two other Quaker families settled in an area known as "Shawanna town on Susquehanna" in 1726. Her two sisters married and remained in Chester County. Wright purchased 100 acres of land along the Susquehanna River in present-day Columbia, Pennsylvania. Her father, John Wright Sr., purchased the neighboring 150 acres, where he built a small house that was torn down in the 1800s. In 1730, John Wright Sr. obtained a patent to operate what became known as Wright's Ferry on the lower Susquehanna River. The ferry was built on Susanna's property and run by her two brothers. She had a house built in 1738, which is still standing today.

Wright was well educated and, in addition to her native English, knew Latin, French, and Italian, and displayed wide-ranging scientific, agricultural, and literary interests typical of 18th century Enlightenment culture.

Wright never married and lived in the lower Susquehanna River area for the rest of her life. She managed her father's household after her mother's death in 1721 and, after her father died in 1749, helped to take care of her brother James's family. In the 1750s, Wright moved into a mansion named Bellmont (since demolished), having been bequeathed a life interest in it by one of her father's partners in the ferry venture, Samuel Blunston.

Among other pursuits, she raised hops, hemp, flax, indigo, and silkworms, establishing the first silk industry in Pennsylvania and receiving an award from the Philadelphia Silk Society in 1771. Silk extracted from her several thousand silkworms was dyed locally and then sent to England to be woven into the heavier grades of silk cloth suitable for mantuas, and the lighter grades needed for stockings. There is folklore that in the 1770s, Benjamin Franklin took a piece of Wright's cloth to Queen Charlotte of Britain as a gift. Wright wrote an essay on silkworm culture that was published posthumously. She also studied the medicinal uses of herbs and formulated medicines for her neighbors.

Known for her good judgment and integrity, she became a prothonotary or principal clerk of the court, in which capacity she drew up legal documents such as land deeds, indentures, and wills for her less-literate neighbors. She was also called on informally to settle local disputes, especially those involving colonists and Native Americans.

Through letter writing, Wright cultivated connections among the literary, political, and scientific elites of the eastern seaboard. Her correspondents included the politicians Isaac Norris and James Logan, and many writers. Wright's Ferry was well positioned as a stopover point between Philadelphia and the western frontier, and consequently Wright met a number of notable travelers over the years, including Benjamin Franklin and physician Benjamin Rush.