author
Dorothy Quigley
A witty late-19th-century journalist, she turned everyday questions about dress, health, and self-improvement into lively, practical books. Her writing has an easy humor that makes advice feel more like conversation than lecture.
1 Audiobook
What Dress Makes of Us
by Dorothy Quigley
About the author
Born as Dorothea Dean Armstrong in Pennsylvania in August 1887, Dorothy Quigley later became known as a writer whose work blended observation, humor, and practical advice. A biographical sketch from the NAWSA suffragists database notes that she was orphaned young and married Richard Shaw Quigley in 1905.
Quigley is best remembered today for What Dress Makes of Us (1897), a smart and entertaining book about clothing and appearance. In its preface, she says the book drew on articles she had contributed to the New York Sun and the New York Journal, which helps place her as a journalist as well as an author.
Catalog records and library listings also connect her with other advice and specialty books, including The Way to Keep Young, Success Is for You, and The Quigley Book of the Pekingese. Taken together, they show a writer with a wide range of interests, moving comfortably from fashion and personal well-being to dog breeding and everyday success.