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niyad

(112,440 posts)
Sun Mar 31, 2013, 08:06 PM Mar 2013

a biography of the day-mary abigail dodge (gail hamilton) author and social critic



Mary Abigail Dodge (Gail Hamilton)
1838-1896
American Author and Critic

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Though her teaching career was met with great success, Mary grew dissatisfied with the long hours and low salary and longed to try her hand at writing. In 1856 she sent samples of her poetry to the antislavery publication “National Era” in Washington which impressed the editor, Gamaliel Bailey, because of her unique and individual style. Two years later she moved to Washington to become the governess of Mr. Bailey’s children and established herself as a writer, making contributions to such publications as the “Independent”, the “Congregationalist”, “Country Living and Country Thinking”, “Summer Rest”, and the “Atlantic Monthly”.

While she was in Washington, Mary chose a pen name. She did this partly because of her disdain for personal publicity and shyness. She chose the name “Gail Hamilton”, taking it from the last part of “Abigail” and “Hamilton”, her place of birth.
The writings of Gail Hamilton met with immediate success and she became a very popular author. Her pieces grew from pointed practical and funny sermonizing on everyday experiences and current events to self-development, self-reliance, and self-respect, written from a sharp-witted feminine viewpoint, alluding to Biblical references to back up her point of view. She was considered rather severe in her criticism of men and her cutting wit made many a man wince with her biting remarks such as: “Some men dole out money to their wives as if it were a gift, a charity. A man has no more right to his earning than his wife has. What absurdity, to PAY him his WAGES and GIVE her money to go shopping with!”

One of her most controversial volumes was “Woman’s Wrongs: A Counter-Irritant”. In this book, Mary attacked the view that women were limited by their physical weakness and Biblical command to the sphere of the home. Being a self-made woman, she was a supporter of woman’s suffrage, but she did not believe it would relieve women of economic discrimination or be morally uplifting to society. In fact, she thought that it might even hinder women from an even loftier role; that of providing spiritual guidance to society, which she did through raising her family. She believed that in the family, a wife and mother should reign supreme, having a husband who loved her and treated her with respect. She also believed that while this was the ideal, in reality many husbands were inclined to feeling superior to their wives and acting as tyrants in the home.

In 1871, Mary began wintering in Washington in the home of her cousin who was the wife of Speaker of the House James G. Blaine. Because of this, she became quite well known in political circles and was able to exercise indirect political influence. It is believed that she often wrote Blaine’s speeches, but while that cannot be verified, she is known to have helped him with the writing of his “Twenty Years of Congress in 1884. She went on to publish her own political views in articles and letters to the New York Tribune. In 1883, after his death, Mary wrote “The Biography of James G. Blaine”.
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http://www.historyswomen.com/thearts/MaryAbigailDodge.html
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