The daily musical activities of poet Emily Dickinson (1830–86) — home performances at the piano, collecting sheet music, and attending concerts— reveal a great deal about the cultural offerings available to a woman of her time, place, and class.
For Emily Dickinson, these experiences provided a vital and necessary backdrop for her emerging artistic persona; most importantly, her encounters with the Dickinson family servants and the New England hymn tradition encouraged artistic borrowings that had a deep and continuing influence on her personality and her writing.
Published copies of all of the music cited by Dickinson in her correspondence can be found here in the Music Division. Using Dickinson’s correspondence and poems, and the collections of The New York Public Library, this exhibit illustrates how Dickinson was able to use these experiences to fashion a unique musical identity that would ultimately serve to give voice to one of America’s most beloved poets.
