User:Gamaliel/Briggs

Emily Pomona Edson Briggs was an American journalist. Briggs wrote under the psudonym Olivia and was one of the first female journalists to achieve a nationwide reputation.

Briggs was born in Burton, Ohio, one of four daughters of blacksmith Robert Edson and Mary Polly Umberfield Edson. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1854, where Robert Edson became successful in real estate. Briggs briefly taught school in Painesville, Ohio.

Around 1854, Briggs married John R. Briggs, Jr., a former Wisconsin state legislator and friend of future President Abraham Lincoln. In August 1854, John Briggs became part owner of the Keokuk Daily Whig newspaper in Keokuk, Iowa, where he reported on the Lincoln–Douglas debates. Active in the Iowa Republican Party, John Briggs was appointed an assistant clerk by Clerk of the United States House of Representatives John Weiss Forney.

Briggs disliked Washington Chronicle

Forney, owner of the Chronicle

http://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_item/olivialetters.htm