Dorothy Dix

This article is about the journalist. For the 19th-century activist, see Dorothea Dix.

Gilmer in her early 30s

Dorothy Dix (November 18, 1861 — December 16, 1951), was the pseudonym of U.S. journalist Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer.

As the forerunner of today's popular advice columnists, Dorothy Dix was America's highest paid and most widely read female journalist at the time of her death. Her advice on marriage was syndicated in newspapers around the world. With an estimated audience of 60 million readers, she became a popular and recognized figure on her travels abroad. Her name is the origin of the term "Dorothy Dixer", a widely-used phrase in Australia meaning a question from a member of Parliament to a minister, that enables the minister to make an announcement in the form of a reply.^{[citation needed]}

1898 column denouncing the selfishness of men in the Bourgogne Disaster.

Life

Elizabeth Meriwether was born on the Woodstock plantation located on the borders of Montgomery County, Tennessee and Todd County, Kentucky. Her journalism career began after a chance meeting with Eliza Nicholson, the owner of the New Orleans newspaper Daily Picayune in 1893. She married her stepmother's brother, George Gilmer.

Career

She first used the pen name Dorothy Dix in 1896 for her column in the Picayune; Dorothy, because she liked the name, and Dix in honor of an old family slave named Mr. Dick who had saved the Meriwether family silver during the Civil War. Within months the column was renamed to Dorothy Dix Talks and under that name was to become the world's longest-running newspaper feature.^{[citation needed]}

The column's widespread popularity began in 1923 when Dix signed with the Philadelphia-based Public Ledger Syndicate. At various times the column was published in 273 papers. At its peak in 1940, Dix was receiving 100,000 letters a year and her estimated reading audience was about 60 million in countries including United States, UK, Australia, New Zealand, South America, China, and Canada. One of her most famous single columns was Dictates for a Happy Life, a ten-point plan for happiness, which had to be frequently reprinted due to popular demand. In addition to her newspaper columns, Dix was the author of books such as How to Win and Hold a Husband and Every-Day Help for Every-Day People.^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography

• Vella, Christina, “Dorothy Dix: The World Brought Her Its Secrets”, in Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times, ed. Judith F. Gentry and Janet Allured, pp 195–214. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009)
• Dorothy Dix, Fables of the Elite (New York: R. F. Fenno & Co, 1902).
• Dorothy Dix, Mirandy (New York: Hearst's International Library, 1914).
• Harnett Thomas Kane, Dear Dorothy Dix: The Story of A Compassionate Woman (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1952).

External links

• Dorothy Dix Collection housed in the University Archives and Special Collections at Austin Peay State University, includes full text of Dictates for a Happy Life.
• Dorothy Dix Digital Collection hosted by the Felix G. Woodward Library.

Persondata
Name	Dix, Dorothy (pen name)
Alternative names	Meriwether, Elizabeth (birthname); Gilmer, Elizabeth Meriwether (married name)
Short description	American newspaper columnist
Date of birth	November 18, 1861
Place of birth	Montgomery County, Tennessee, U.S.
Date of death	December 16, 1951
Place of death	New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.