What Answer?

This first and only novel by Anna E. Dickinson, a well-known 19th-century orator, abolitionist, and advocate of racial equality and women's rights, attracted tremendous interest when it first appeared in the fall of 1868, and was enthusiastically endorsed by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Set in the midst of the Civil War, this controversial work of fiction traces the tragic history of an interracial marriage, which is doomed to disaster by the intolerance of a northern society that refuses to accept racial equality. The central love story provoked strong reactions from supporters and critics alike. Dickinson's friends praised the power of her tale and the poignancy of the lovers' fate, while some critics voiced disgust at the very notion of miscegenation. To portray such a relationship only three years after the Civil War was to many an act of remarkable audacity.

Though the work will never be praised as a masterful literary creation, its themes of racial tension and justice have given it enduring value. Also lending the story interest are Dickinson's impassioned descriptions of two infamous historical incidents - the terrible New York City Draft Riots of July 1863 and the storming of Fort Wagner by black troops of the famed 54th Massachusetts regiment. Even more important is the glimpse she provides into the conflicted attitudes of average white Northern citizens toward blacks just after the War. A scene on a Philadelphia streetcar depicting the mixed reactions of the passengers to a confrontation between a drunken white bigot and a wounded black soldier seems to forecast the Rosa Parks bus incident and the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement almost one hundred years later.

With an interesting and informative introduction by J. Matthew Gallman (Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era, Gettysburg College), this new edition of a unique work long out of print will be welcome in courses on African American and American history.

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson was born on October 28, 1842, in Philadelphia. She was the youngest of five children of Quakers John Dickinson, a dry-goods merchant, and Mary Edmondson Dickinson. Her father died when she was two years old. She received her early education from her mother and had five years of formal education, mainly at Friend's Select School of Philadelphia. Raised in modest circumstances, at age fifteen Dickinson went to work as a copyist and later as a schoolteacher.

The Dickinson home was reportedly a station on the Underground Railroad. At age thirteen Dickinson had an antislavery article published in William Lloyd Garrison's paper, the "Liberator". In 1860 she gave her first public speech, addressing the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. In 1861 she gave her first paid lecture on "The Rights and Wrongs of Women," arguing for women's suffrage and their entrance into the professions.

In 1861 Dickinson lost the job she then held at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, for accusing General George B. McClennan of treason in the loss of the Battle of Ball's Bluff. She again turned to the lecture circuit, where the press hailed her as the "juvenile Joan of Arc." In 1863 Radical Republican leaders in New Hampshire and Connecticut hired her as a campaign speaker. In January 1864 she addressed a gathering, including President and Mrs. Lincoln, in the hall of the House of Representatives, calling for Lincoln's reelection.

After the Civil War Dickinson was an important speaker on the lyceum circuit, lecturing on racial prejudice, big business, the double standard of sexual behavior, and the liberation of women from the financial and legal control of fathers and husbands. She published WHAT ANSWER? (1868), a novel about interracial marriage; A PAYING INVESTMENT (1876), on various social reforms; and a memoir, A RAGGED REGISTER: OF PEOPLE, PLACES, AND OPINIONS (1879).

By 1873 Dickinson's popularity as a lecturer declined, and she turned to writing and acting for the theater. In 1876 she appeared in her own play, "A Crown of Thorns," but critics ridiculed her work. While most of her other plays remained unproduced, "An American Girl" was a success for actress Fanny Davenport in 1880. After she was ridiculed for her portrayal of Hamlet, Dickinson retired from public view.

In 1888 Dickinson again appeared as a platform speaker for the Republican National Committee, but it is alleged that her language was so caustic she was an embarassment and was let go. In 1891 she was involuntarily confined for a short stay in the State Hospital for the Insane in Danville, Pennsylvania. Upon her release she sued those responsible for committing her and was awarded nominal damages.

After 1891 Dickinson lived in several places in New York and Pennsylvania, and finally settled at Goshen, New York, where she died on October 22, 1932.