Dorothy Dix
| Dorothy Dix | |
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| Born | Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer November 18, 1861 |
| Died | December 16, 1951 (aged 90) |
| Pen name | Dorothy Dix |
Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer (November 18, 1861 — December 16, 1951), widely known by the pen name Dorothy Dix, was an American journalist and columnist. As the forerunner of today's popular advice columnists, 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.
Her reputed practice of framing questions herself to allow her to publish prepared answers gave rise to the Australian term "Dorothy Dixer", an expression widely used in Australia to refer to a question from a member of Parliament to a minister that enables the minister to make an announcement in the form of a reply. 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 married her stepmother's brother, George Gilmer.
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.
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