Petticoat Press #9: Gail's Era for Mary Abigail Dodge

Petticoat Press #9: Gail's Era for Mary Abigail Dodge by Jeanne Arnieri

Mary Abigail Dodge (1833-1896)

Mary Abigail Dodge was another rather famous woman writer during the Civil War era. Using the pen name Gail Hamilton, her features, opinions and reporting were published in the National Era before the War and the New York Tribune and Atlantic Monthly during and after.

Shy and wary of personal publicity she hid behind her nom-de-plume. She was born in Hamilton, Massachusetts, the source of her professional name. When young she taught at Catherine Beecher's Hartford Female Seminary. Her penname Gail, shortened from her middle name, was vaguely male/vaguely female. The teacher began sending her poetry and essays to editors who found her witty and insightful.

Gail's Era by BeckyCollis

Gamaliel Bailey (1807- 1859 )

One of those editors Gamaliel Bailey invited her at 25 to be governess for his six children in Washington City. Bailey, a physician, was a strong abolitionist who'd founded the National Era, a short-lived but influential anti-slavery paper before the Civil War, which he edited with wife Margaret Lucy Shands Bailey 1812-1888, also a professional editor and columnist. The Baileys influenced antislavery opinion in the capitol with weekly salons that gathered like-minded intellectuals to discuss the cause.

Mary Abigail must have attended these gatherings despite her shyness. She was self-conscious about her appearance as she had an injured eye (stabbed with a fork when she was 2!) and was rather reclusive in person if not in print.

Embroidered slippers worked during the war for poet John Greenleaf Whittier

After Gamaliel Bailey died in 1859 Margaret Bailey continued the newspaper for another year or two with Mary Abigail continuing to contribute, although she returned to Massachusetts to care for her mother. 

Gail's Era by Elsie Ridgley

It's difficult to find Gail Hamilton's columns before the 1870s but she also wrote many books on social topics, particularly on marriage, a strange subject for a woman who never married---a choice that did not stop her from having strong opinions.

In 1859 the National Era considered her an asset.

1872

1877

After the war her ideas grew increasingly conservative; she was opposed to women's rights, civil service reform and was an advocate of James Blaine in the 1876- 1884 presidential elections, a distant relative. Finally nominated in 1884 Blaine lost in a vicious campaign climate to Grover Cleveland.

1878, Blaine assuming the persona of Gail Hamilton

Gail's Era by Denniele Bohannon

Gail Hamilton created feuds with her publishers Ticknor and Fields and the Atlantic magazine, believing they had cheated her in royalties. She published her grievances in thinly disguised fiction: A Battle of the Books in 1870.

Gail's Era by Becky Brown

 Publisher Annie Adams Fields was sad to lose her affections:

"Mary Dodge whom we have known so well and sincerely loved has seen fit to withdraw her friendship---and without a word..." Diary entry, February 12, 1868

1878

Late-life portrait from Hamilton's Life & Letters

Mary Abigail finished a biography of James Blaine in the 1890s. She died of a series of strokes in August, 1896 and was eulogized in many newspapers such as the Kansas City Star, with their obituary below.

A remembrance in 1900

The Block

Gail's Era, BlockBase 2320

As the block was published without a name we'll call it Gail's Era.