Career
As the forerunner of today"s popular advice columnists, 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 in newspapers around the world. With an estimated audience of 60 million readers, she became a popular and recognized figure on her travels abroad.
In Australian rhyming slang, a "Dorothy", or "Dorothy Dix", refers to a hit for six in cricket.
Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer was born on the Woodstock plantation located on the borders of Montgomery County, Tennessee and Todd County, Kentucky. She graduated from Hollins Institute in 1883.
Her journalism career began after a chance meeting with Eliza Nicholson, the owner of the New Orleans newspaper Daily Picayune. She first used the pen name 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. 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, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South America, China, and Canada. One of her most famous single columns was Dictates for a Happy, a ten-point plan for happiness, which had to be frequently reprinted due to popular demand.