Dandridge earns a living by telephone coal orders
Poet involved
What happened
After paralysis confined him to his mother's house at 814 Chateau Avenue in Price Hill, Cincinnati, Dandridge found work taking coal orders by telephone. Accounts connect this work with Roger Kemper Rogan's coal company and with local friends who helped direct customers to him. The arrangement gave him income while he remained bedridden.
Literary impact
The telephone work kept Dandridge connected to the commercial life of Cincinnati even when he could not leave his room. That mixture of confinement and social contact deepened the tension in his poetry between physical limitation and an active, outward-reaching imagination.
Source: Cincinnati Magazine
