Women in the the Visual Arts and Literature

Emily Dickinson

8-cent Emily Dickinson stamp
This 8-cent stamp was issued August 28, 1971 in Dickinson's lifelong residence of Amherst, Massachusetts. Bernard Fuchs designed the stamp.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) has proved to be one of the most well known American poets from her time. She received excellent education for a woman of the nineteenth century, and attended the Amherst Academy from 1840-1847, before going to the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary until August of 1848. Best known for her reclusiveness, Dickinson left Mount Holyoke and returned to her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she lived until her death. Although she wrote over 1,700 poems during her life, the majority of Dickinson’s work was not published until after her death.