[2] She is significant as the author of a journal in which she writes about her life as an artisan in the context of a woman actively engaging in the economy[3] and a Calvinist in New England in the years following the Revolutionary War (1787-1802).
[8] The relatively small town of Hatfield (which held a population of 803 in 1765)[7] had a history of political, military, and religious upheaval for more than half of a century before Dickinson was born.
[17] At the height of her career, Dickinson was part of a community of gownmaking women in the Connecticut Valley who were well known for their work in altering wardrobes and creating new and fashionable garments.
It is good to be where God’s voice is to be heard.”[22] Because of her marital status, she referred to herself as an “old maid”, which was a popular derogatory term that categorized older women who had never married.
[24] Rediscovered in the late nineteenth century by relatives, Dickinson’s surviving diary consists of her struggles with her faith and her state of singlehood.
Although “Aunt Bek” was well liked in Hatfield and had a reputation of a “Saint on Earth”, her diary reflects a constant tone of sadness and despair.
[25] Rebecca Dickinson kept a journal for years but she burned all of those that existed just before her forty-ninth birthday because she believed that they had been written poorly and were too concerned with "earthly" matters, such as motherhood and her personal possessions.
[25] Although Dickinson was offered marriage at least three times, she chose to live alone for most of her life as she did not find the idea of wifehood or having a traditional family attractive.
[28] A considerable portion of the suffering expressed within her journal came as a result of her loneliness, not necessarily a desire to have a family, but to have the sort of connections that matrimony had offered her female peers.
Whatever her reasons were, Dickinson was able to keep herself financially stable independent of a man to support her, unlike most women of the time and place, through her gown making and tailoring.
[35] Coming from the Calvinist idea of predestination, Dickinson spent much of her time in religious contemplation in order to prepare herself for God.
[43] Although none of the garments she constructed are known to survive, a set of crewelwork bed furnishings decorated with vines and flowers are preserved in the collections of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Library in Deerfield, Massachusetts, which also holds the manuscript diary.