Julie Dobrow
Publications
After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America’s Greatest Poet (2018, WW Norton). Despite Emily Dickinson’s renown, the story of the two women most responsible for our knowing about her poetry previously remained in the shadows. Utilizing hundreds of overlooked letters and diaries to weave together these women’s complicated stories, this book delineates the controversial editorial decisions and complex relationships that underscored the right to define the so-called Belle of Amherst. Longlisted for the PEN/Bograd Award, finalist for the Plutarch Award, this book won the Conch Award and was named a “must-read” book by the Massachusetts Book Association.
Love and Loss After Wounded Knee: A Biography of an Extraordinary Interracial Marriage (2025, NYU Press). Like most star-crossed lovers, they came from different worlds. Elaine Goodale, an acclaimed childhood poet from a remote corner of the Berkshires, traveled to the Dakota Territory to teach Native American students, undaunted by society’s admonitions. Charles Eastman, a Dakota Sioux from Minnesota, was educated at Dartmouth and BU Medical School. Against all odds they met and fell in love. And then the Wounded Knee Massacre happened and changed everything. This dual biography reveals how their legacies reflect changing American attitudes toward gender, race, and Indigenous identity.
About Julie
Julie Dobrow is a writer, biographer, and professor at Tufts University. Her work includes both historical/biographical and social science topics. She holds faculty positions in the departments of Child Study and Human Development, Film and Media Studies, and Civic Studies, and is also the director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. She is co-principal founder and producer of the Half the History Project, a multi-modal project that uses short-form biography, film and podcast to tell the untold and under-told stories of women’s lives. She serves on the New England Biography committee at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and is president of the Boston Authors Club. Dobrow has published articles in a variety of popular and academic venues.
A graduate of Smith College and the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Dobrow lives outside of Boston.