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Why did Emily Dickinson travel to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1864 and 1865?
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Emily Dickinson
Poet Emily Dickinson is one of American poetry's most singular and influential voices.
Emily Dickinson traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1864 and 1865 to undergo a course of medical treatment with a leading Boston ophthalmologist.1
During this time, she stayed at a boardinghouse shared by her cousins, Louisa and Frances Norcross. Dickinson sought this care to address symptoms involving aching in her eyes and a painful sensitivity to light. While the exact nature of her condition remains a subject of posthumous diagnosis, scholars have suggested possibilities such as anterior uveitis or exotropia.1