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The "Homestead"
Emily Dickinson’s grandfather on her father’s side, Samuel Fowler Dickinson built what is referred to as the “Homestead” on Mainstreet in Amherst. The Dickison family, Emily's mother and father and her brother Austin, just moved back in with Edward's (Emily's father) parents two months before Emily Dickinson was born. They moved in with Edward's parents and several of his siblings. -
Amherst Academy
Amherst Academy, was founded in 1814 by a group of town leaders including Emily Dickinson's grandfather Samuel Fowler Dickinson and Noah Webster, who were on the school’s first Board of Trustees.The Academy is where youngsters go to school, and it is built on land belonging to Samuel Fowler Dickinson. The Academy had a great influence on Dickinson, the boys and girls were both able to take the classical and the English routes in the Academy. This is where her gardening intrest started. -
Amherst College
Amherst College
Samuel Fowler Dickinson is one of the principle founders of Amherst College which opened its doors in 1821. Her father, Edward Dickinson, studied at Amherst College in its opening year and her brother Austin graduated from the College in 1850. Both Edward and Austin served as treasurers to the college, and that greatly shaped both Dickinson households. -
Emily Dickinson was born.
Emily Dickinson, was born Elisabeth Dickinson on the 10th of December in 1830. She was born in Amherst Massachusetts at the family home the Homestead. Her parents were Edward Dickinson (1803-1874) and Emily Norcross Dickinson (1804-1882). Her father was a prosperous lawyer and her mother was an invalid mother. She was the middle child of three children, Austin (1828-1895), Emily, and Lavinia (1833-1899). -
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Emily Dickisons life
This is when Emily Dickison was alive. -
Emily's sister Lavina
Emily's sister Lavina was born in 1833, shortly after her grandparents moved to Ohio because of financial difficulties. The Homestead was sold to someone outside of the family, however the Dickinsons remained there for several years as tenants anyways. -
Primary School
In 1835, Emily Dickinson began Primary School where she remained for four years. Her education was greatly influenced because while she was going to school she spent most of her time at home learning to do domestic chores that were expected for women to do at the time. -
The Dickson Family moves.
The house at this time was not big enough for the family and Edwards growing political career. The Dickinson family moved to a house on North Pleasant Street in Amherst in 1840. Emily Dickinson who at the time was nine, then attended the Amherst Academy until 1847. Dickinson liked the house on Pleasant Street and being close to her siblings. Her time was occupied by gardening, baking, schooling, writing letters, taking walks and singing and piano lessons. -
Mount Holyoke Female Seminary
Mount Holyoke is now Mount Holyoke College. Dickinson's schooling at the time was excellent for girls at that time in history. But, it was not uncommon for girls in Amherst. The school was founded ten years before Dickinson attended, it was based on a college level literary course of study and was one of the most rigorous academic institutions a women could attend at the time. It was ten miles away from Amhest, in South Hadley, Massachusetts. When Dickinson was enrolled there were 234 students. -
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Mount Holyoke Female Seminary
Emiliy Dickison entered Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in September of 1847 and remained there until August of 1848. This was the longest time she spent away from home. Dickinson started at the Seminary when she was 16, she shared a room with her cousin Emily Norcross who graduated in 1848. During the first week, Dickinson took an exam which places her in the first of the three academic levels, by midterm she was in the second. The school like most of the time was based upon religion. -
Holyoke part 3 (read after time span)
The school was slit in three sections those who wished to teach the religion those who had hope to, and those who had no intrest Dickinson was in the third, one of 80 girls, and she was one of 29 who remained there until she left. Mary Lyon the leader of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, had an everlasting effect on Dickinson. She showed Dickinson "...that women were capable of and entitled to a life of the mind." -
First Poem to be Published
"Sic transit gloria mundi,"The Springfield Daily Republican publishes Dickison's "Sic transit gloria mundi" anonymously as "A Valentine," this is the first Emily Dickison poem to be published. -
Father is elected into House of Representatives
Emily Dickison's father Edward Dickison is elected for a single term in the U.S House of Representatives. -
Railroad
Through the efforts of Emily Dickisons father Edward Dickison, the railroad goes through Amherst. -
Moving Back
In 1855 the Dickison family purchases the homestead back after selling it and it being remodeled. Emily and Lavina visit Washington D.C. and Philidelphia this year as well. -
Susan Gilbert
Austin Dickinson, the brother of Emily Dickison, marries Susan Gilbert a friend of Emily Dickison's, They move into the house that was built for them next door to the Homestead and name their house "The Evergreens." -
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The Fascicles
Emily Dickinson began collecting her poems in small packets today we reffer to them as fascicles. -
Master letters
Emily Dickison wrote the first three manuscript drafts to an unknown recipient. They are reffered to today as the "Master Letters." There is much skepulation about who they were written for. -
The Fascicles
Emily Dickinson began collecting her poems in small packets today we reffer to these packets as fascicles. These were handmade booklets where she kept her poems, after her death they found over 800 poems in 40 of these fasicles. -
Edward (Ned) Austin Dickinson
Emily Dickinson's first nephew, Edward (Ned) Austin Dickinson was born at The Evergreens. -
Amherst Academy
In 1861, the Academy fell on very hard times and completely closed due to the opening of the first public high school in Amherst. -
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The Civil War
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A life Long Correspondance
Emily Dickinson on April 15th 1862 initiates a life long correspondance with Thomas Wentworth Higginson. He was a social activist and a writer. -
5 Published Poems
Five of Emily Dickison's poems have been published in newspapers such as The Drum Beat, The Brooklyn Daily Union and The Round Table -
Eye Ailment
In 1864 and 1865, Dickinson went to Cambridge Massachusetts for treatments for a painful eye condition, today thought to be iritis, with an ophthalmologist in Boston. While under the doctor's care (eight months in 1864, six months in 1865), she boarded with her cousins, Frances and Louisa Norcross. These times were her last times out of Amherst; after she returned in 1865, she hardly ever left the Homestead again. -
Late 1860's Seclusion
In the late 1860's Dickinson's period of intense seclusion and reclusion starts. She became occupied by her garden, her family, especially her brothers family at the Evergreens next door and health concerns. -
Dickinson Family
Dickison's dog Carlo dies, and Martha Gilbert Dickison, Emily Dickison's neice is born. -
Margret Maher
The Dickison family hires Margret Maher as their housekeeper. -
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson went to visit Dickison for the first time in Amherst. He called again in 1873. -
Edward Dickison Dies
Edward Dickison, Emily Dickison's father dies. -
Family
Emily Norcross Dickison, Emily Dickison's mother suffers a stroke which leaves her partially paralyzed. Thomas Gilbert (Gib) Dickinson was born, Emily Dickison's second nephew. -
Late 1870's
Emily Dickison's romantic relationship with Otis Phillips Lord begins. -
Sucess is Counted Sweetest
Success is Counted Sweetest is published in A Masque of Poets, which is anonymous. Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need. Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory As he defeated--dying--
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear! -
The Todd's Come to Amherst
Mabel Loomis Todd and David Todd move to Amherst. Later Mabel Todd becomes the Co-editor of the first volumes of Dickison's poems. -
Emily Norcross Dickison
Emily Norcross Dickison dies, Emily Dickison's mother. -
Gib Dickison Dies
Emily's second nephew Gib dies in 1883 -
Otis Lord Dies
Otis Lord, Emily Dickison's romantic love dies in 1874 -
Emily Dickison Dies
Emily Dickison died on May 15th 1886.
Her best writing years were in her late 20's and early 30's.
She wrote almost 1,800 poems, 1100 of which in her late 20's and early 30's. She made very little attempt to have them published. At least 7 of her poems were published however; none of them were published with an authors name and she had not given permission for them to be published. After her death her poetry and life story were finally shown to the She is burried in the town cemetery "West." -
Poems by Emily Dickinson
Poems by Emily Dickison is published by Roberts Brothers of Boston. The co-editors were Mabel Todd, and her correspondant she often talked to Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Dickinson wrote whenever she felt inspired to, she mainly wrote in her bedroom, which was on the second floor of her childhood home the Homestead. She wrote from there so she could stay up at night and write like she often did.
Bedroom -
Critics Part 1
"Daniel Fiske, who became principal of the Academy at the age of twenty-three, recalled that Dickinson’s “compositions were strikingly original ... and always attracted much attention at the school and, I am afraid, excited not a little envy” (Sewall, p. 342). Dickinson herself joked that her school compositions proved “exceedingly edifying to myself as well as everybody else” (L6). The exchanged notes and little jokes written in the margins of the Latin schoolbook she used at the Academy ... -
Critics Part 1.2
(now in the Amherst College Special Collections) suggest that she wasn’t always paying attention in class. These were social and lively years for her, full of pleasurable activities with “the five” as she called her circle of girlfriends (L11)."
