Dorothy Dix (November 18, 1861 — December 16, 1951), was the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 of U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer.

As the forerunner of today's popular advice column

Advice column

An advice column is a column in a magazine or newspaper written by an advice columnist . The image presented was originally of an older woman providing comforting advice and maternal wisdom, hence the name "aunt"...

ists, 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

Print syndication

Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....

 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

Dorothy Dixer

In Australian politics, a Dorothy Dixer is a rehearsed or planted question asked of a government Minister by a backbencher of his/her own political party during Parliamentary Question Time.The term is used in a mildly derogatory sense...

", a widely-used phrase in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 meaning a question from a member of Parliament

Parliament of Australia

The Parliament of Australia, also known as the Commonwealth Parliament or Federal Parliament, is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It is bicameral, largely modelled in the Westminster tradition, but with some influences from the United States Congress...

 to a minister, that enables the minister to make an announcement in the form of a reply.

Life

Elizabeth Meriwether was born on the Woodstock plantation

Plantation

A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

 located on the borders of Montgomery County, Tennessee

Montgomery County, Tennessee

Montgomery County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The county seat is Clarksville. The population was 172,331 at the 2010 census. It is one of the four counties included in the Clarksville, TN–KY Metropolitan Statistical Area....

 and Todd County, Kentucky

Todd County, Kentucky

Todd County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of 2000, the population is 11,971. Its county seat is Elkton. The county is named after Colonel John Todd, who was killed at the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782...

. 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

Pen name

A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...

 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

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. Within months the column was renamed to Dorothy Dix Talks and under that name was to become the world's longest-running newspaper feature.

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.

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.