Carrie Burnham Kilgore

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In: 19th Century Women, Lawyers, Women's Rights

Carrie (Caroline) Burnham Kilgore (1839-1909) was a woman of firsts. Born in a remote Vermont village, at age twelve, she was taken out of school when her parents died and put to work in the family woolen mill. But her desire to learn was too strong. At fifteen, she began teaching at local schools and doing domestic work to pay the tuition to study the classics at a local academy and then two seminaries. Illness from typhoid, sent her to live with her sister in Wisconsin, where she recovered and took up teaching again. When a male high school teacher fell ill, she took overRead More →

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In: 19th Century Women, Business, Women's Rights

Not Just a Madam: Lula White of Basin Street Getting to know Lula White (c.1868-1931) means getting to know her world. In the thirty-eight block New Orleans “red light district” of Storyville, and between 1897 and 1917, there were too many houses of prostitution to come up with an accurate count. Reigning over them all was Lula White’s house, Mahogany Hall. Reigning over Mahogany Hall, was Lula.  Lula seized the crown of the New Orleans sex trade because she put her eye to the keyhole that was New Orleans and shrewdly assessed the world she saw through it. She had to have noted: Women asRead More →

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson

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In: 19th Century Women, Abolition, Activists, Civil War, Women's Rights, Writing

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 ofRead More →

Anna Dickinson

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In: 19th Century Women, Abolition, Activists, Civil War, Women's Rights

Once upon a time, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842 to 1932) was one of the most well-known women in America. She was an intrepid abolitionist and believer in women’s rights. During the Civil War, she gave rousing anti-slavery speeches and was hired by the Republican party to campaign on behalf of their candidates, something unheard of for a woman of her time. The spectacle of a diminutive girl spouting fiery words drew large crowds. The newspapers called her America’s Shining Star, the Woman of the Hour, and America’s Joan of Arc. Today, she is forgotten. My upcoming novel That Dickinson Girl tells the fictionalized story ofRead More →

Caroline Dall 19th century author

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In: 19th Century Women, Authors, Literature, Religion, Women's Rights

I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to track down the contributions of those whose histories and work have been forgotten. In 1861, the prolific writer, feminist, and transcendentalist, Caroline Wells Healey Dall, better known as Mrs. Dall, wrote Historical Pictures Retouched: a Volume of Miscellanies. In this volume, Dall wrote studies of over forty women, ranging from those of ancient times to her own contemporaries who were not given the importance they deserved. Such a work of research was to be expected from a woman who wrote such diverse works as the history of Egypt, women’s rights, children’s books, novels,Read More →