Ella Cheever Thayer Explained

Ella Cheever Thayer
Birth Date:September 14, 1849
Birth Place:Portland, Cumberland County Maine, United States
Death Place:149 West Canton Street, Boston, Massachusetts, US
Occupation:Novelist
Playwright
Telegraphist
Period:1879–1897
Genre:Fiction
Subject:Romance
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

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 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

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.

Notes and References

  1. "What Mark Zuckerberg Should Learn From Horny 19th-Century Telegraph Operators. No, really." by Megan Ward, Slate, May 27, 2024.
  2. Web site: Balancing Acts . Jackson, Maggie . The Boston Globe . December 19, 2004.
  3. Web site: Love on a Wire . Collins, Paul . Uncollected Paul Collins . October 26, 2011.
  4. Web site: Book Reference . https://archive.today/20120712191433/http://lccn.loc.gov/08027756 . dead . July 12, 2012 . Library of Congress Book lists . October 26, 2011 .
  5. Web site: Women Telegraphers and the Railroad in Pennsylvania . October 26, 2011 . Jepsen, Thomas C. . . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080514033908/http://www.mindspring.com/~tjepsen/PHMCPres_files/frame.htm . May 14, 2008 .
  6. Web site: Wired Love – A Romance of Dots and Dashes – Ella Cheever Thayer . wjkennaugh . No Link Left Unclicked (Blog) . wordpress.com . February 2, 2008.
  7. Web site: Suffragist Plays . October 26, 2011 . Answers.com.
  8. Web site: Dramatic compositions copyrighted in the United States, 1870 to 1916 .. (Volume 1) . 10 . Library of Congress, Copyright Office . Government Printing Office . 1918 . 2011-10-26 . 2023-04-05 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230405012459/https://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/library-of-congress-copyright-office/dramatic-compositions-copyrighted-in-the-united-states-1870-to-1916--volume--rbi/page-10-dramatic-compositions-copyrighted-in-the-united-states-1870-to-1916--volume--rbi.shtml . dead .
  9. Robinson. E.P.. Sketch of Saugus. The Bay State Monthly. 2012-03-25. 2016-03-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304135013/http://saugus.essexcountyma.net/sketchofsaugus.pdf. dead.