Ella Cheever Thayer
Ella Cheever Thayer | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 14, 1849 Portland, Cumberland County Maine, United States |
| Died | October 28, 1925 (aged 76) 149 West Canton Street, Boston, Massachusetts, US |
| Occupation | Novelist Playwright Telegraphist |
| Period | 1879–1897 |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Subject | Romance |
| Literary movement | Suffragette |
Ella Cheever Thayer (September 14, 1849 – October 28, 1925) was an American playwright and novelist. Born in Maine, she worked as a telegraph operator and published several works in her lifetime, including the hit 1879 novel Wired Love: A Romance in Dots and Dashes.[1]
Biography
[edit]She was the daughter of apothecary George Augusta Thayer (October 19, 1824 – December 13, 1863) and Rachel Ella Cheever Thayer (October 18, 1823 - May 15, 1907). One sister, Mary Georgie Thayer (October 9, 1869 – March 30, 1912), was a school teacher. Thayer eventually became a telegraph operator[2] at the Brunswick Hotel[3] in Boston, Massachusetts, who used her experience on the telegraph as the basis for her book Wired Love, A Romance of Dots and Dashes,[4] which became a bestseller for 10 years.[5]
She was also a playwright, having written The Lords of Creation[6] in 1883. Her play is reviewed in the book On to Victory: Propaganda Plays of the Woman's Suffrage Movement by Bettina Friedl, published in 1990 (ISBN 1-55553-073-7) and it was one of the first suffragette plays.[7]
She also wrote Amber, a Daughter of Bohemia,[8] a drama in five acts, in 1883. She also wrote short stories for magazines including "The Forgotten Past" in Argosy (January 1897).
Later life and death
[edit]She lived in Saugus, Massachusetts.[9] Thayer died of liver cancer; her ashes were placed on November 1, 1925 in Bigelow Chapel, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.[citation needed]
References
[edit]- ^ "What Mark Zuckerberg Should Learn From Horny 19th-Century Telegraph Operators. No, really." by Megan Ward, Slate, May 27, 2024.
- ^ Jackson, Maggie (December 19, 2004). "Balancing Acts". The Boston Globe.
- ^ Collins, Paul. "Love on a Wire". Uncollected Paul Collins. Retrieved October 26, 2011.
- ^ "Book Reference". Library of Congress Book lists. Archived from the original on July 12, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2011.
- ^ Jepsen, Thomas C. "Women Telegraphers and the Railroad in Pennsylvania". Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on May 14, 2008. Retrieved October 26, 2011.
- ^ wjkennaugh (February 2, 2008). "Wired Love – A Romance of Dots and Dashes – Ella Cheever Thayer". No Link Left Unclicked (Blog). wordpress.com.
- ^ "Suffragist Plays". Answers.com. Retrieved October 26, 2011.
- ^ Library of Congress, Copyright Office (1918). "Dramatic compositions copyrighted in the United States, 1870 to 1916 .. (Volume 1)". Government Printing Office. p. 10. Archived from the original on 2023-04-05. Retrieved 2011-10-26.
- ^ Robinson, E.P. "Sketch of Saugus" (PDF). The Bay State Monthly. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2012-03-25.
External links
[edit]
- Works by Ella Cheever Thayer in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
- Works by Ella Cheever Thayer at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Ella Cheever Thayer at the Internet Archive
- Works by Ella Cheever Thayer at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
- 1849 births
- 1925 deaths
- Writers from Portland, Maine
- People from Saugus, Massachusetts
- 19th-century American novelists
- American women novelists
- American women short story writers
- American women dramatists and playwrights
- 19th-century American women writers
- 19th-century American short story writers
- Hello Girls
- Novelists from Maine