Dickinson, Anna E. (Anna Elizabeth), 1842-1932

<p>Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, (born October 28, 1842, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died October 22, 1932, Goshen, New York), American lecturer on abolitionism, women’s rights, and other reform topics, remembered for the articulate but emotionally blistering rhetoric that characterized her speaking style.</p>

<p>Dickinson grew up in poverty. Her formal education took place mainly at the Friends’ Select School of Philadelphia, but she was an avid reader and early developed the habit of expressing herself on public questions. At age 14 she published an article in William Lloyd Garrison’s <i>The Liberator</i>. In 1860 she addressed the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, and in early 1861 she spoke in Philadelphia on “Women’s Rights and Wrongs” to such effect that she received invitations to speak from several platforms throughout New England. For a short time in 1861 she held a position at the U.S. mint in Philadelphia, but she was fired for publicly accusing General George B. McClellan of treason in the loss of the Battle of Ball’s Bluff. Thereafter she devoted herself to the speaker’s platform.</p>

<p>Much of Dickinson’s work in 1863 was in behalf of the Republican Party. In January 1864 she addressed a gathering, including President Abraham Lincoln, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Her oratory was marked by fiery passion and remarkable vituperation, and these, together with the novelty of her sex and youth, made her enormously popular. After the Civil War she went on the lyceum circuit, delivering addresses across the country on “Reconstruction,” in which she advocated harsh treatment of the South; “Woman’s Work and Wages”; “Whited Sepulchres,” her attack on Mormonism; “Demagogues and Workingmen”; “Between Us Be Truth,” on the “social evil” (venereal disease); and her favourite, “Joan of Arc.” She published <i>What Answer?</i> (1868), on the topic of interracial marriage; <i>A Paying Investment</i> (1876), on various social reforms; and <i>A Ragged Register (of People, Places, and Opinions)</i> (1879), a memoir.</p>

<p>Dickinson’s considerable income went as fast as it came, and when her popularity as a lecturer dwindled she turned to other fields. In May 1876 she appeared in Boston in a play of her own, A <i>Crown of Thorns</i>; both she and the play were dismissed by critics. She wrote several more plays, most of which remained unproduced and unpublished, although <i>An American Girl</i> was a success for Fanny Davenport in 1880. After a ridiculed appearance as Hamlet in 1882, Dickinson retired from the public view.</p>

<p>In 1888 Dickinson returned to the platform at the invitation of the Republican National Committee, but her undiminished gift for denunciation and epithet now proved an embarrassment, and she was let go. Growing signs of mental instability led to her incarceration in a state hospital in Danville, Pennsylvania, for a short time in 1891. On her release she sued those responsible and was awarded nominal damages. Dickinson lived out the rest of her life quietly in New York.</p>

<p>Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (October 28, 1842 – October 22, 1932) was an American orator and lecturer. An advocate for the abolition of slavery and for women's rights, Dickinson was the first woman to give a political address before the United States Congress. A gifted speaker at a very young age, she aided the Republican Party in the hard-fought 1863 elections and significantly influenced the distribution of political power in the Union just prior to the Civil War. Dickinson was the first white woman on record to summit Colorado's Gray's Peak, Lincoln Peak, and Elbert Peak (on a mule), and she was the second to summit Pike's Peak.</p>

<p>Dickinson was born on October 28, 1842 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Quakers and abolitionists, John and Mary Edmondson Dickinson. Her Edmondson and Dickinson ancestors immigrated to the United States from England and with other Quakers settled at Tred Avon, or Third Haven, near Easton, Maryland in about the 1660s. She had three older brothers—John, Edwin, and Samuel—and an older sister, Susan. The family home was on the Underground Railroad.</p>

<p>Dickinson's father died in 1844 when she was two years old after giving a speech against slavery. Left in poverty, Mary opened a school in their home and took in boarders to support the family. Dickinson was educated at Friends Select School of Philadelphia and for a short time, until age 15, at Westtown School. A hardworking student, she spent any money she earned on books, having acquired an interest in literary classics from her mother. At the age of 14, she converted to the Methodist Church, and remained active in the church throughout her life.</p>

<p>Born to Philadelphia Quakers John and Mary Dickinson on October 28, 1842, she was the youngest of five girls. When Anna was only two years old, her father died of a heart attack after giving a passionate and influential speech against slavery. She helped support her family from age 15, and in 1861, became one of the federal government’s first female employees when she got a job at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia.</p>

<p>She began her activism even earlier, when she was thirteen years old, by writing an essay for William Lloyd Garrison’s famed newspaper, The Liberator. She also was friendly with Lucretia Mott, who preached against slavery in Quaker meetinghouses for decades. Unlike others of the era’s religions, Quakers encouraged women to speak in public, and under Mott’s leadership, some eight hundred Philadelphians bought tickets for Dickinson’s first major speech early in 1861, “The Rights and Wrongs of Women.”</p>

<p>Dickinson lost her job at the Mint when she publicly criticized Union strategy, and then Mott arranged a lecture tour for the 19-year-old girl that was sponsored by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Her reputation grew so quickly that more than 5,000 people crowded New York’s Cooper Institute for her first appearance in that city. One newsman wrote that she “could hold her audience spellbound for as much as two hours. She gave the impression of being under some magical control.”</p>

<p>As the Civil War worsened, the new Republican Party hired her to deliver the pro-Union message to audiences that were not especially supportive of the war. Some Pennsylvania coal miners who objected to the draft literally took shots at Dickinson, but she converted many to the abolitionist cause. She also is credited with influencing the people of Connecticut to vote for the man who became governor. Averaging a speech every other day, she earned as much as twenty thousand dollars annually – an amazing amount for that era.</p>

<p>She reached the high point of her career in 1864, when Republican leaders in Congress invited her to speak. She was the first woman thus honored, and in addition to the president, other military and civilian leaders packed the House floor and its gallery. At a time when many people still considered it taboo for a woman to speak in public, this was an amazing achievement. It was particularly remarkable for such a young woman to capture the attention of well-informed and busy congressmen.</p>

<p>In addition to Lucretia Mott, Dickinson was close to Susan B. Anthony – who also was a lecturer and an active Quaker in her youth. Anthony in fact felt such personal fondness for Dickinson that she addressed her in some letters as “Chickie Dickie.” Dickinson returned to a feminist focus in her postwar speeches, some of which bordered on the sensational. She addressed venereal disease in a lecture titled “Between Us Be Truth” and spoke on polygamy in “Whited Sepulchers.” Her most popular talk was about Joan of Arc, and some people referred to her as the “Civil War’s Joan of Arc.” She also published several books, the most radical of which was a novel sympathetic to interracial marriage, <i>What Answer?</i> (1868).</p>

<p>Anna Dickinson did not age well, however, and never recovered from her postwar loss of fame. Unlike Anthony, whose popularity rose with age, Dickinson’s declined; her speeches in the 1888 presidential election were so excessively partisan and hostile that the Republican Party never hired her again. She tried acting, but was not a hit on the stage, and by 1891, showed such signs of paranoia that she was involuntarily committed to a Pennsylvania hospital for the insane. She filed lawsuits upon her release, was adjudicated sane, and recovered damages from newspapers – but the experience shook her self-confidence and ended her career.</p>

<p>Fame arguably had come too easily, too early in her life. Although she was a genuine celebrity and an asset to the Union in the Civil War, Anna Dickinson lived the next forty years in the households of friends, unnoticed and unwanted by the public. She died just days before her ninetieth birthday.</p>