Emily Dickinson
National Women's History Month Honoree
(1830-1886) ~ Poet
Dickinson attended Amherst Academy and spent one year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. She returned to her home in 1848 and rarely traveled. She probably began writing poetry in the 1860s. Her correspondent, Thomas Higginson, counseled her against publication, but her school mate and lifelong friend Helen Hunt Jackson encouraged Dickinson to allow a few to be published in the 1870s. After her death, 1,775 pieces were found and published.