Anna Dickinson (1842-1932) was a major celebrity of her time. She drew crowds of thousands, headlined newspapers, and consorted with the major figures of the day. For an ordinary girl from a nondescript family, this was a heady experience, especially since she found this fame at a young age. She was only sixteen when newspapers started taking notice of her.
Early readers of my forthcoming novel have said the character of Anna is arrogant and hard to like. And she is. As a writer, I felt that this was the truest way to represent her personality and explain the choices she made. My characterization of her is based on my reading of her voluminous writings, and what we know about the effect of fame on people
According to psychologist and fame expert, Donna Rockwell, being at the pinnacle of popularity is a heady mix, that stimulates the pleasure center of the brain. Celebrities become addicted to the emotional high the adulation of the crowd provides. This certainly describes Anna in her early years.
Someone placed at the pinnacle of fame can become so accustomed to receiving attention, that they forget how to give back to others in normal ways or just enjoy everyday life. Going back to living an ordinary life with ordinary people becomes impossible. This is the crux of That Dickinson Girl.
Here is a brief excerpt from the novel on the theme of fame:
Julia unwound the string, lifted the flap, and gently slid out the articles—the foundations of Anna’s burgeoning fame—thin strips of newsprint from small-town papers, shadowed in the half-light, impossible to see. In her hand, they felt as ephemeral as the snowflakes falling outside the window.
Ten, twenty, thirty and more. She didn’t need to read them. The words burned her memory the way Anna’s touch had burned her skin. America’s Champion. A Woman of Power.
How she loved that woman, despite her arrogance, despite her unfathomable quest for fame, despite her unconscionable selfishness.
Someday, she would lose her. She knew that. How could one woman’s love resist the lure of power?
To learn more about Anna’s life see:
America’s Joan of Arc: The Life of Anna Elizabeth Dickinson by J. Matthew Gallman. Published by Oxford University Press, 2006.
Embattled Maiden: The Life of Anna Dickinson by Giraud Chester. Published by G. P. Putnam, 1951.
What Answer? her novel about a mixed marriage, her memoir Ragged Register, and her political stance, A Paying Investment are available free from Google Books.
*For a review of her life on the stage, see Nothing Ladylike About It: The Theatrical Career of Anna E. Dickinson by Stacey A. Stuart, a dissertation published in 2004. https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/1552/umi-umd-1430.pdf
The rest of her voluminous cache of papers, letters, performed plays, speeches, and memory albums, including Susan B. Anthony’s heart-rendering breakup letter, can be found in the Anna E. Dickinson Papers in the Library of Congress.
“… God created this woman, not a flower, not a flute, but a living soul; such as to receive help and yield hope to all other living souls to it entrusted…”
Anna Dickinson, The Ragged Register, 1879, p. 61
Anna Dickinson lived at a time when one’s fame spread by word of mouth and via the newspapers. Do you think that in this day of the internet and social media frenzy she would not have been forgotten?