Dear Following Studies
Dorothy Dix & the history of advice columns, part 2
Welcome to Following Studies — an adventure through subcultures, obsessions, the things we follow & the things that follow us. I’m glad you’re here. If you think someone else would have fun hanging out with us, be sure to share.
Last week, we dived into advice columns and we’re continuing on this week.
In 1896, Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer met Eliza Poitevent Nicholson on the Mississippi Coast. Nicholson was the newspaper publisher of the New Orleans Picayune. Gilmer was a woman on break from her life — she was ten years into a marriage that constituted moving to different towns, watching her husband start jobs, then leave jobs, try his hand at things, and then get fired. He was struggling and would later live out his years at an asylum. The young couple never had much money, and what money they did have was brought in by Gilmer, who was periodically writing for the New Orleans Picayune and submitting essays to contests. Gilmer was on the Mississippi Coast because her parents sent her there after a visit with them showed that she was unwell and underfed. She needed a break, and next door to her on vacation was the publisher who, in another way, would give her the biggest possible break of her life.
It was after that trip with an offer from Nicholson that Elizabeth Gilmer became a staff writer for the New Orleans Picayune. She was brought on staff to write far more than just advice columns but it was there that she began her column.
“Dorothy Dix Talks” was written by Elizabeth Gilmer and ran from 1896 to 1950. At its height, it was read by sixty million people every week and appeared in 273 newspapers across America, Europe, Mexico, and Latin America. Her photo was plastered on buses across Europe.
- Jessica Weisberg, Asking for a Friend: Three Centuries of Advice on Life, Love, Money, & Other Burning Questions from a Nation Obsessed
Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer’s family, the Meriwether’s, were enslavers from the South; Gilmer’s father was a Confederate sympathizer and soldier, and once the Civil War was over, many enslaved people stayed with the Meriwether family. One of those formerly enslaved people was a man called Mr. Dicks. Gilmer remembered him, adjusted his name slightly, and began using it as her pen name along with Dorothy, a name she just liked.
And just like that, Dorothy Dix was the first syndicated female advice columnist. Gilmer undoubtedly carved the way for the future Dear Abby, Dear Ann, and Dear Sugars of the world. The Dorothy Dix column gave what Gilmer called common sense advice. Here’s the thing: an advice column is only as good as the advice giver. Gilmer wrote into the space that existed for women in that era. She acknowledged the hardships; she, after all, was living in her own world of relationship hardships. She also acknowledged the reality of limited choices. Should you leave that marriage? It makes sense why you want to, but what lies outside of it available for you as a woman at this moment in time? Most of her advice, quite modern then, would make most of us shudder now. It centered on where women were at that time rather than fighting against the systems, structures, and gender norms that kept women in abusive homes or other terrible circumstances. She offered a listening ear, and, in her answers, she suggested that others accept their circumstances, buck up and bear it. It’s commonly said that writers write what they need to read in the world, so maybe, to survive her circumstances — circumstances that wouldn’t be easy to leave now and certainly weren’t easy to leave then — Gilmer was writing into others’ lives exactly what she thought would help her survive hers. The world moves on. There’s another day. You will endure.
For those of us searching now for guidance in life’s complexities, I would turn to but I couldn’t help myself, so while Following Studies isn’t transforming into an advice column, behold, a few questions I solicited:
Dear Following Studies,
What would your advice be to someone who has trouble finding meaning in their creative work? I oscillate between wild enthusiasm for an idea (set of ideas), only to fall into a mild depression once the novelty wears off or it doesn’t live up to my imagined version of it, or I remind myself that nobody will care either way once it’s finished and out in the world. I want my work to matter, but, at times, it feels futile or even arrogant to demand such a reality with the world in its current state.
- Struggling Artist
Dear Struggling Artist,
The short answer is your art matters because you matter. You are expressing your thoughts and your experience. Only you can do that. In the constellation of things, there is a connective tissue between you and someone else because of your art. There is a bridge between you and them. And just like all the artists that have inspired you, your art makes scaffolding for someone else to climb on and create theirs.
Sure, you aren’t curing cancer, but art creates conversation. It reminds us there is something greater than our solitary experience. It invites people to be kinder, more generous, more thoughtful, and to see something outside themselves.
I do think that one of the biggest blocks artists can have is putting so much weight on a project — that this one thing they are working on must be the thing that plucks them from obscurity. I wonder if that’s where you are at. I completely understand getting bogged down in that golden project, the one you’ve thought about for years and placed so much importance on it — it must reflect who you are and your growth as an artist and fully express the idea it is trying to. That’s a heavy weight for a piece of art to carry. Maybe it will. Maybe it will fall short. But maybe, when you lean away from the pressure and into the joy you feel when you are creating, your work will transform into what it’s meant to be. You know what I’m talking about, that time in creating where you are just in a complete flow state when it’s coming so naturally because you are having fun in your work and without outside pressure, are just experiencing true creativity pouring out from yourself. I do think (and this is a reminder for myself, too) that a piece of art tells you when it’s ready to be done. So don’t talk yourself out of putting something out there when it’s ready. You’ll know.
The only thing you can do is control the creation of something. You can’t control the response. Not everything is going to be the Mona Lisa. Your art will be folded into the world. It will be part of the conversation that all of our art is having with each other. That’s part of the joy. We toil away alone at desks or canvases or wherever we make whatever so that one day, our work can mingle with others. Don’t leave yourself out of the conversation.
- Following Studies
Dear Following Studies,
I finished school last year, but I have to take licensure tests to advance my career fully. I feel like I cannot rationalize the investment of more studying and exams. My current job is fine, but I spent three years and thousands of dollars getting the education to propel my career forward. How can I get the energy to start?
-What in the A.R.E. am I doing?
You spent the past three years doing something that took a herculean effort. First, you saw your life and decided to redirect to something else. Then you spent years studying and believing that all that studying would lead to something different, something that felt more like you, something that would build a life that would fit you better. That sounds really tiring. Change, and making changes, is completely exhausting. It’ll take a lot out of you, What in the A.R.E., and it looks like it did. And in those three years, I’m sure you gave other things up — things you enjoy doing, time spent with people you love — just to get to the finish line. It’s no wonder that once you felt you crossed it with graduation it has felt exhausting watching the finish line extend a little further, a little more out of grasp. You do need to start eventually.
I’m not going to pretend it’s not going to suck. It will. Studying often does. But once, I waited to take college math until my last semester. This was particularly troubling because it took me a particularly long time to get through my undergrad, so when I finally got to the course, high school math was almost a decade behind me. I had no idea how to do basic things that I’m almost too embarrassed to write (matrices people, it was truly bad). I didn’t want to take the course, so I waited, and it was worse when I finally did. All those fundamentals I had were gone; all I had was floating numbers on a page.
Are you afraid of failing the tests? What if you did? Or are you afraid of passing them? What if you do? But this unknowing and not doing, it’s just standing directly in your own way. You spent three years investing in your life and following a new path. Don’t stop this close to the end. These are things that I know and that you know. But you write about getting the energy to start and getting the energy to study. Starting something is easier said than done, especially after an intense season where you are probably still recovering from burnout. So be gentle with yourself, What in the A.R.E. Starting your tests doesn’t mean you have to take everything at once. You don’t have to be everything all at once. Rest, and rest. Take some time to do nothing, do something for yourself, or do something you love. We cannot always pour out from our wells unless we are actually taking the time to fill them back up. When you feel the pieces of yourself come back together a little more, choose something easy from the list, take a practice test, and slowly map out a way to study for the exam. Don’t spend every second studying. Life doesn’t have to be full throttle all the time. If you take these pieces slowly, it won’t have to be, and life can settle at a new pace. Just don’t wait so long that you forget whatever your version of matrices are.
- Following Studies
What’s some of the best advice you’ve ever received? And what’s some of the worst?
Such good advice that life doesn’t always have to be full throttle. I need to remind myself of this!