Emily
Elizabeth
Dickinson
Born in Amherst, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States
Ancestors 
Daughter of Edward Dickinson
and Emily (Norcross) Dickinson
Sister of
William Austin Dickinson and Lavinia Norcross Dickinson
Died
at age 55
in Amherst, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States
Profile last modified
| Created 14 Sep 2010
This page has been accessed 14,706 times.
Contents |
Biography
Emily Dickinson is Notable.
This profile won Profile of the Week the Third week of April 2014.
Emily Dickinson is a member of Clan Gunn.
|
| Emily Elizabeth Dickinson |
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886) is considered a leading 19th century American poet. Her verse is known for its boldness, brilliance and enigmatic compression. Willing to experiment, she challenged the rules of poetry and expressed in her verse what could be... but was not yet known. Emily crafted a significant body of work, almost 1800 poems, but only about 10 of those were published in her lifetime. It was not until after her death that the rest of her poems were found and published. Emily's greatness was not fully appreciated until well into the 20th Century.[1][2]
Early Life
Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States. Her father, Edward Dickinson, was a lawyer, politician and prominent figure in the community. Her mother, Emily Norcross , was an excellent housekeeper with a love of the sciences and gardening. [3][4][5]
Emily was the middle child of three in the Dickinson household. Along with her sister Lavinia Norcross Dickinson and her brother William "Austin" Dickinson, they attended Amherst Academy, One of the founders of the school was their paternal grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson, Emily was a very good student, her studies in the sciences led to a passion for botany. She compiled a vast herbarium that is now owned by Harvard University.[6]
Emily's final term at the Academy was in 1847, after which she attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a brief 10 months. By all accounts it seems Emily was not thriving there and she returned home in March of 1848. She settled into family life, occupying her time with baking and attending events in her community.[7][8][9]
As the children grew into adulthood, Emily's brother Austin married Emily's best friend, Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson. Austin built his new family home right next door to his sister. Emily and her sister Lavinia lived together in their childhood family home with their parents. They never married and remained there to the end of their days. [10][11][12][13]
The Poet
Of the people that were in Emily's life in her early adulthood, Benjamin Franklin Newton stands out. He was a young lawyer who became a friend of the family. He gave her a gift, Ralph Waldo Emerson's first book of collected poems, which Emily credits with awakening her poetic soul. Newton, suffering from tuberculosis, hoped he would live to see her attain the greatness he saw in her. Emily wrote in 1862 ""When a little Girl, I had a friend, who taught me Immortality – but venturing too near, himself – he never returned"[14]
Emily's poems were unique in that they were not usually titled. She used short lines and unusual punctuation and capitalization. Very often she would use slant rhyme in her poems. Her topics included nature, spirituality and society. Many of her poems were about death and immortality, and were perhaps in response to the sadder events in her life.[15]
About 1858 Emily began sorting and placing her poems in hand made manuscripts. She told no one of these, and they were not discovered until after her death. Over the course of seven years she made forty of them, which collectively held some 800 poems. [16]
By 1866 Emily's writing had slowed. She had suffered the loss of some of her close friends and family, as well as her beloved dog Carlo. This caused her great sadness and she slowly withdrew from the world. Her father died in 1874. Her mother became bedridden due to illness, and needed her daughters care until she passed away in 1882. In Emily's later years she rarely left her room. She maintained contact with friends mostly by letter. Emily was thought of by the locals as eccentric, she preferred white clothing and was very reluctant to greet guests. [17]
After her death there was a short article about Emily that was published by The Evening World on the 30th of July, 1891. It was under the header "Ways of Women Fair" It mentioned her seclusion, referring to it as " her shyness amounted almost to a mania" and then stated "She loved children, and had a habit of lowering gifts to them from her windows…''. [18]
Though she wrote nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime, few were known of until after her death, when Emily’s sister Lavinia discovered her stash of poems. Her first collection of poetry was published four years after her death, though it was heavily edited by two of her personal acquaintances. Because of a family feud, it was not until 1955 when a complete and mostly unaltered collection of the poet’s work was published by a scholar named Thomas H. Johnson. [19]
A notice of Emily's death was published by The Boston Globe on Friday, May 28th, 1886. It was under the heading "Notes from Amherst". It mentioned Emily's friendship with Helen Jackson (H.H.). It also reported a belief held by some that Emily was the true author of her dear friends work. It read as follows,
- In the death of Miss Emily Dickinson the town has lost a woman of brilliant literary powers. She was an intimate friend of Helen Jackson (H.H.), and many believe her to be the real author of the Saxe-Holm stories. [20]
There has been no evidence found to support the belief that Emily Dickinson was the author of the Saxe Holm Stories.Their interest in each other's work was discussed in an excerpt of "In Praise of Ramona" which contains the statement "We have no evidence of Dickinson's response to the Saxe Holm stories or Mercy Philbrick (or even that she read them), but we have clear evidence of her interest in Ramona from her letter to Jackson of March 1885" [21]
Last Chapter
Two years before her death, Emily was diagnosed with Bright's disease. She continued her writing even then, but she had stopped making her manuscripts. Her sister agreed, at Emily's request, to burn her papers after she passed on.
In November of 1885 Emily's health deteriorated further, so that she was bedridden for several months. In the spring she managed to send out a final round of correspondence. To her Norcross cousins she sent a letter with one brief message "Little cousins, called Back. Emily" [22]
Emily died on the 15th of May, 1886, at the age of 55 in Amherst, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. She was buried in West Cemetery, Lot 53, Grave B in Amherst, Hampshire County, Massachusetts. Her headstone was simply engraved with the words "Called Back"[23][24]
- That is solemn we have ended, Emily Dickinson Poems
Sources
- ↑ "Emily Dickinson", Poetry Foundation (poetryfoundation.org), online publication,
Emily Dickinson, (accessed 2023-04-26), 61 West Superior Street Chicago, IL 60654 - ↑ Wikipedia: Emily Dickinson
- ↑ "Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915", database,
FamilySearch Record, (accessed 14 January 2020),
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, 1830. - ↑ Emily Dickinson Museum: Edward Dickinson (1803-1874), father
- ↑ Emily Dickinson Museum, Emily Norcross Dickinson (1804-1882), mother
- ↑ "The Emily Dickinson Collection", Harvard Library,
Emily Dickinson Collection, (accessed 2023-04-26), Herbaria - ↑ Wikipedia, Emily Dickinson
- ↑ "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch,
Record, (accessed 22 December 2020), Emily E Dickinson in household of Edward Dickinson, Amherst, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States; citing family , NARA microfilm publication (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.). - ↑ "Massachusetts State Census, 1855," database with images,
FamilySearch Record, (accessed 11 March 2018),
Emely E Dickinson in household of Edward Dickinson, Amherst, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States; State Archives, Boston; FHL microfilm 953,946. - ↑ "United States Census, 1860", database with images,
FamilySearch Record, (accessed 18 February 2021),
Emily E Dickinson in entry for Edward Dickinson, 1860. - ↑ "Massachusetts State Census, 1865", database with images,
FamilySearch Record, (accessed 22 February 2021),
Emily E Dickinson in entry for Edward Dickinson, 1865. - ↑ "United States Census, 1870", database with images,
FamilySearch Record, (accessed 29 May 2021),
Emily E Dickinson in entry for Edward Dickinson, 1870. - ↑ "United States Census, 1880," database with images,
FamilySearch Record, (accessed 14 January 2022),
Emily E. Dickinson in household of Emily Dickinson, Amherst, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States; citing enumeration district , sheet , NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), FHL microfilm - ↑ Wikipedia, Emily Dickinson
- ↑ Wikipedia: Emily Dickinson
- ↑ Wikipedia: Emily Dickinson
- ↑ Wikipedia: Emily Dickinson
- ↑ "Emily Dickinson", Newspapers.com,
Clipping, (accessed 2023-04-28)
The Evening World, New York, New York, Pub: Thurs. July 30th, 1891, Pg. 2, Col. 7, Ways of Women Fair, 2nd entry - ↑ Wikipedia: Emily Dickinson
- ↑ "Death Notice", The Boston Globe,
The Boston Globe Boston, Massachusetts · Friday, May 28, 1886 In the death of Miss Emily Dickinson", (accessed 2023-04-27),
Pg 8, Col. 6, Notes from Amherst, "In the death of Miss Emily Dickinson" - ↑ Strickland, Georgiana. ""In Praise of 'Ramona'": Emily Dickinson and Helen Hunt Jackson's Indian Novel.", Project Muse (https://muse.jhu.edu/),
Excerpt, (accessed 2023-04-28),
The Emily Dickinson Journal 9, no. 2 (2000): 120-133. doi:10.1353/edj.2000.0023 - ↑ Wikipedia: Emily Dickinson
- ↑ "Massachusetts State Vital Records, 1841-1920", database with images,
FamilySearch Record, (accessed 13 December 2022),
Emily E. Dickinson, 1886. - ↑ "Find a Grave", database and images,
Find A Grave: Memorial #282, (accessed 26 April 2023),
Emily Dickinson (10 Dec 1830–15 May 1886), citing West Cemetery, Amherst, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, USA; Maintained by Find a Grave.
See Also;
- The Emily Dickinson Collection", Harvard Library Home Page,
The Collection, (accessed 2023-04-27)
- "Emily Dickinson - Poet", Wikitree Free Space,
Dickinson Clan Gunn , (accessed 2023-04-26),
Clan Gunn Ancestry, Profile Manager Scott Hendricks
- "The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson",
Massachusetts Historical Society (masshist.org), Collections Online, Poems,
Complete Works, (accessed 2023-04-28),
Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1891, c1890. [5th ed.], edited by Mabel Loomis and T.W. Higginson
- Wikipedia contributors, "Emily Dickinson," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
Emily Dickinson, (accessed April 26, 2023).
- "Emily Dickinson Museum", Amherst, Hampshire, Massachusetts
Museum, (accessed 2023-04-26)
- Petermann, Emily, "I have so much to tell:-Emily Dickinson's 1846 Visit to Boston", Massachusetts Historical Society (masshist.org),
Visit to Boston, (accessed 2023-04-28),
The Beehive Blog Beehive Home, Updated March 17, 2022
- "Letters from Dickinson to Abiah Root ", Dickinson Electronic Archives, (archive.emilydickinson.org), Letters, (accessed 2023-04-28),
Emily Dickinson/Abiah Root Correspondence
- "About Emily Dickinson", Poets.org (poets.org), Academy of American Poets,
Emily Dickinson 1830-1886), (accessed 2023-04-26)
Is Emily your ancestor? Please don't go away!
Login to collaborate or comment, or
contact
the profile manager, or
ask our community of genealogists a question.
Login to collaborate or comment, or contact
the profile manager, or ask our community of genealogists a question.
Sponsored Search by Ancestry.com
DNA
No known carriers of Emily's ancestors' DNA have taken a DNA test. Have you taken a test? If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.
No known carriers of Emily's ancestors' DNA have taken a DNA test. Have you taken a test? If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.
Images: 5
- Do we have this connection between Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson? Mar 5, 2024.
- Notable profile updated recently but contains a badge for Profile of the Week from 2014, should it stay? May 1, 2023.
- Notable 19th Century Poet Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830 - 1886) Apr 26, 2023.
- Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830 - 1886) NEHS “Black Cake, A Christmas Treat Emily Dickinson Loved To Bake” Dec 20, 2020.
- Profile of the Week winner - Emily Elizabeth Dickinson Apr 17, 2014.
Featured Eurovision connections: Emily is 30 degrees from Agnetha Fältskog, 24 degrees from Anni-Frid Synni Reuß, 27 degrees from Corry Brokken, 19 degrees from Céline Dion, 24 degrees from Françoise Dorin, 24 degrees from France Gall, 26 degrees from Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, 25 degrees from Lill-Babs Svensson, 20 degrees from Olivia Newton-John, 33 degrees from Henriette Nanette Paërl, 31 degrees from Annie Schmidt and 18 degrees from Moira Kennedy on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
D > Dickinson > Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Categories: Poets | West Cemetery, Amherst, Massachusetts | Persons Appearing on US Postage Stamps | This Day In History December 10 | This Day In History May 15 | National Women's Hall of Fame (United States) | United States, Authors | Bright's Disease | Featured Connections | United States, Poets | Notables | Profile of the Week Winners | Clan Gunn
Emily Dickinson: American Poet and a descendant of Clan Gunn from the Scottish Highlands" by Scott Hendricks Emily Dickinson was a troubled soul; and arguably one today’s best-known iconic poets of the American Romance movement. She and Herman Melville were not well known during the period of their lifetimes; but are the most widely read in the modern age. She was a contemporary of the better-known Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. I was a student of the Romance Movement in American Literature.
The history of this period in the United States, at least by 1818 with William Cullen Bryant's "To a Waterfowl", Romantic poetry was being published. American Romantic Gothic literature made an early appearance with Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) and Rip Van Winkle (1819), followed from 1823 onwards by the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper, with their emphasis on heroic simplicity and their fervent landscape descriptions of an already-exotic mythicized frontier peopled by "noble savages", similar to the philosophical theory of Rousseau, exemplified by Uncas, from The Last of the Mohicans. There are picturesque "local color" elements in Washington Irving's essays and especially his travel books. Edgar Allan Poe's tales of the macabre and his balladic poetry were more influential in France than at home, but the romantic American novel developed fully with the atmosphere and melodrama of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850). Later Transcendentalist writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson still show elements of its influence and imagination, as does the romantic realism of Walt Whitman. The poetry of Emily Dickinson—nearly unread in her own time—and Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick can be taken as epitomes of American Romantic literature. By the 1880s, however, psychological and social realism were competing with Romanticism in the novel.
It was the spring of 1969; I was an English Major at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. The class was called “The American Romantics”, taught by Donald Koch, PhD. Before leaving high school (thanks to my teachers Jean Moulton and Alice Kubo), I was a fan of Nathaniel Hawthorne and had read all of his novels and short stories. I had also read most of Edgar Allen Poe’s works. You might call me a fan. The first assignment given us was a semester long research project. Each student was handed a name of one of the authors or poets of the Era. The name on my slip pf paper was Emily Dickinson. My heart sank. I wanted Hawthorne. Alas, I had my assignment and went with it. It was the best assignment for my future. By studying Ms. Dickinson, I learned to appreciate the loneliness of writing, the troubled souls of the writers of that era and of the English Romance Movement. It caused me to look inward and to know that I was living in the wrong time period. Though I never knew my great-grandfather (he was of that era) I got to know him through his journals. This is what Emily Dickinson did for me. This is why I became excited when asked to write a profile by members of the Scottish Clan Gunn for this member of the Clan.
Her poetry transcends time and distance. As a writer, I am always reading my competition. I am currently reading a novel by the English author Martha Grimes. Wouldn’t you know it, the hero carries a book of Emily Dickinson poems around with him at all times. I highly recommend that everyone, at some time in their lives, read the poems of Ms. Dickinson.
Emily Dickinson was a recluse. She rarely went out in public and in her later years rarely left her room in the large house where she grew up. In spite of that she was called the Belle of Amherst and she wrote 597 poems. Each and every one of them can touch the very essence of the human heart, soul, or emotion. For example from her poem “Heaven” – is what I cannot reach:
The Color, on the Cruising Cloud—
The interdicted Land—
Behind the Hill—the House behind—
There—Paradise—is found!
Or her poem “Hope” – is the thing with feathers:
"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—
I like the line, “That perches in the soul—“. I can feel the talons clutching at the strings that bind me together and make me who I am. We all have our doubts, our fears, our superstitions. Ms. Dickinson can put words to those feelings. It is not enough to know the history of who a person was. It is important to understand who he/she was and how they reacted to their environment and those other people with whom they came in contact. With Emily Dickinson, you can only really know who she was by reading her poems. The thesis I submitted to my professor back in 1969 was one-hundred, thirty-six pages in length. I have read through hundreds of histories and biographies of Emily Dickinson and I cannot condense the life of Emily Dickinson any better than what Wikipedia has done on the Internet. It is the best chronological short history of Emily Dickinson I have ever seen. It is the only place that doesn’t jump around the events of her life, making the reader sit back and wonder was this before that or after this. I have, therefore decided to incorporate it in to this profile as being the best timeline of Ms. Dickinson’s life.
by,Scott H. Hendricks, 06 Apr 2014
-Jennifer
The suggestions I was asked to make on this profile are for discussion and implementation by the PM's and trusted list. Once the changes are made the review request category can be removed and any posts about the changes on this board.
Thank you for your cooperation.
I am not sure why there is a freespace page that is an exact copy of this page. It might be an idea to replace references on this page like 'Clan Gunn Ancestry' with a link to the freespace page.
Most of the direct copy from Wikipedia should be replaced by a summery of the article and a link to the full text.
More use should be made of <ref> tags to add citations or footnotes explaining the source of the fact.
Scott Hendricks