Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842-1932) was, for a time, one of the most famous women in the U.S. A skilled orator, she delivered speeches across the country, passionately advocating for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery–earning her the name America’s Joan of Arc.
Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842-1932) was, for a time, one of the most famous women in the U.S. A skilled orator, she delivered speeches across the country, passionately advocating for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery–earning her the name America’s Joan of Arc.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Luvvie Ajai Jones. I’m a NYT Best Selling author and host of the podcast Professional Troublemaker. I’m so excited to be your guest host for this month of Womanica!
Today’s prodigy was, for a time, one of the most famous women in the U.S. A skilled orator, she delivered speeches across the country, passionately advocating for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery – earning her the name America’s Joan of Arc.
Please welcome Anna Elizabeth Dickinson.
Anna Elizabeth Dickinson was born the youngest of five children, in 1842. Her parents were Quakers, and her father was a dedicated abolitionist. In 1844, he died from a heart attack after delivering a particularly impassioned speech. Anna was just two years old.
Though she was too young to remember much of her father, his legacy clearly left a deep impact on Anna.
In 1856, she came across the story of a Kentucky school teacher, who’d suffered abuse for their anti-slavery work. Outraged, Anna penned a response in the Liberator, a popular abolitionist newspaper. She was just 14 years old, and though this was the first time she publicly expressed her opinion to the masses, it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
In 1860, Anna, now 18, addressed the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society. In the audience that night was Lucretia Coffin Mott, the abolitionist and suffragist. A reporter from the Philadelphia Press wrote that Anna gave, “the speech of the occasion,” as she declared, “If the word ‘slave’ is not in the Constitution, the idea is.”
Lucretia was charmed by this performance, and in 1861 got Anna an opportunity to speak at Philadelphia’s Concert Hall. There, for 2 hours, in front of 800 people, Anna delivered a speech called “The Rights and Wrongs of Women.” Her ability to speak sarcastically – and spontaneously – won the crowd over. Booking requests across New England began to pour in.
With her short curls and sweet, youthful face, Anna shocked audiences with her fiery delivery and vitriolic language. This duality made her enormously popular – and entertaining.
A few months after her Philadelphia triumph, the Civil War officially started. Anna became a fervent supporter of the North – so much so that she was fired from her job after she accused a Union general of treason, following a poorly-fought battle.
Though she was just 19, Anna had been supporting her family for the last four years. She needed income, and quickly. Anna decided to pursue speech-giving full-time, and set off on a whirlwind schedule, sponsored by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
By 1863, Anna had become a strong advocate for the Republican cause. Morale in the North was at a dangerous low, and elections were on the horizon. Two years into the Civil War, which states would continue to support the Union?
Anna was hired as an official campaign speaker for New Hampshire’s State Republican Committee. Though the margins were narrow, and the battle fierce, the ballot boxes ultimately went to Republicans. The state’s governor credited Anna’s speeches as the driving force. She was then dispatched to Pennsylvania’s mining country, where she reportedly had “a curl shot off” her head when she refused to sit down. She also spoke throughout Connecticut, where she once again tipped the scales.
In their coverage of her opening speech, the Hartford Daily Post wrote, “With figure dilating, face impassioned, eye flashing, she poured forth that wonderful illustration and appeal, and the audience, breathless… hung upon her words.”
In 1864, Anna was invited by over 100 Republicans to address Congress. The vice president introduced her as “a Joan of Arc, sent by providence to save the nation.” Though she actually criticized President Lincoln in her speech – why wouldn’t he publicly denounce slavery? – Anna received a standing ovation. She was just 21 years old.
After the war, Anna became the star of the Lyceum [Lye-SEE-um] circuit. This movement, which reached its peak during Antebellum, sent orators around the country, as a form of adult education and enlightenment.
At a time when women rarely spoke in public, Anna was earning the equivalent of nearly half a million dollars for doing just that – double the income of most Lyceum men. She delivered speeches on women’s rights, religion, racial equality – even Joan of Arc. Still in her early 20s, Anna became one of the most famous – and recognizable – women in the United States.
After seeing her onstage, Mark Twain wrote, “She talks fast, uses no notes whatever, never hesitates for a word, always gets the right word in the right place, and has the most perfect confidence in herself...Her vim, her energy, her determined look, her tremendous earnestness, would compel the respect and the attention of an audience, even if she spoke in Chinese….”
But by the late 1870s, Anna’s popularity had started to wane. Her speech style – vicious, and aggressive – began to feel outdated, in this postwar era. She never became a part of a larger collective, or movement. She never married.
Her combative nature onstage continued once she was off, and she spent years – and lots of money – in lawsuits that dragged on. She drank heavily. In 1882, she appeared onstage as Hamlet. The performance was so ridiculed that she retired from the public.
Anna died just days before her 90th birthday, in 1932. After a career that became so public, so soon in life, Anna spent most of her years living in poverty, and obscurity. She was, in many ways, an early victim of the American fame machine. Praised as an ingenue, her fall from grace was cheered on just as enthusiastically. But traces of Anna’s influence are still here. A photo of her, at the height of her fame, lives in the Library of Congress. Handwritten at the bottom, is a note from Anna: “The world belongs to those who take it.”
All month we’re highlighting prodigies.
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Special thanks to creators Jenny and Liz Kaplan for having me as your guest host.
Talk to you tomorrow!