Initially popular as a curiosity, Anna Dickinson gradually established a reputation as a political thinker whose endorsement was in demand. She stumped for Republicans across four states during the Civil War, the first woman ever paid to campaign.…
Anna Dickinson was a lesbian, as Matt Gallman demonstrates in his 2006 biography. He quotes Dickinson’s steamy correspondence with a variety of women, including Susan B Anthony(!), and acknowledges her female partner of 30 years, but hesitates to…
We gotta talk about lesbians. Specifically, about lesbian erasure. Queer is cool, right? It’s 2020! ðŸ³ï¸â€ðŸŒˆðŸ³ï¸â€âš§ï¸etc., etc. So why is the lesbian reality of the suffrage movement barely part of the #19thAmendment centennial…
There were no microphones in the struggle for suffrage. Radio didn't yet exist. Public lectures were the only way to hear new ideas, and giving a public lecture in halls like NYC’s Cooper Union or the Academy of Music in Phila. meant projecting your…
After the war, Dickinson toured nationally, delivering a repertoire of 22 different lectures on women’s suffrage & the rights of all African-Americans. At the height of her career, she made more money than Mark Twain: c. $400k/yr in today’s…
Susan B Anthony was a lesbian. There’s solid evidence of her romantic relationships with women, and contrary evidence doesn’t exist. You didn’t know? Me neither. ðŸ™Patriarchy is very, very powerful. But in 1946 another dyke came along and…
I spent the whole week on Anna Dickinson because she was very, very famous in her day and is almost lost to history. I know a lot about suffrage for a non-academic, and I had never heard her name before the @smithsonianNPG exhibit. In “America’s Joan…