Sarah Josepha Hale
Encyclopedia
Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (October 24, 1788 - April 30, 1879) was an American writer and an influential editor. She is the author of the nursery rhyme
"Mary Had a Little Lamb". She famously campaigned for the creation of the American holiday known as Thanksgiving
, and for the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument
.
, New Hampshire
to Captain Gordon Buell and Martha Whittlesay Buell. Her parents believed in equal education for both sexes. Early on in her life, she was educated by her mother and her brother Horatio who taught her what he had learned at Dartmouth
; later on, Hale was an autodidact
.
While working as a schoolteacher in 1811, her father opened a tavern called The Rising Sun in Newport; she met David Hale the same year. The couple married at The Rising Sun, on October 23, 1813, and had five children: David (1815), Horatio (1817), Frances (1819), Sarah (1820), William (1822). David Hale, a lawyer, died in 1822 and, in perpetual mourning, Sarah Josepha Hale wore black for the rest of her life.
In 1823, with the monetary support of her late husband's Freemason lodge, she published a collection of her poems titled The Genius of Oblivion.
Her novel, published in the U.S. under the title Northwood: Life North and South and in London under the title, A New England Tale, made her one of the first American women novelists and one of the first of either gender to write a book about slavery. The book, which espoused New England
virtues as the model to follow for national prosperity, was immediately successful. The novel not only espoused New England values, but supported the re-Africanization of slaves in the colony of Liberia
. It is an argument for Thomas Jefferson
's apprehension regarding the difficulty the races would encounter (and have encountered) in living together with the specter of slavery between them. In her introduction to the second edition (1852) Sarah Hale writes in the spirit that is characteristic of the principles by which she lived, "The great error of those who would sever the Union rather than see a slave within its borders, is, that they forget the master is their brother, as well as the servant; and that the spirit which seeks to do good to all and evil to none is the only true Christian philanthropy." The premise of her book is just that. While slavery hurts and dehumanizes slaves absolutely, it also dehumanizes the masters and retards the psychological, moral and technological progress of their world.
The book garnered praise from Reverend John Blake, who asked Hale to move to Boston to serve as the editor of his journal, Ladies' Magazine
. She agreed and, from 1828 until 1836, she served as editor in Boston, though she preferred being called an "editress". Hale hoped the magazine would help in educating women, as she wrote, "not that they may usurp the situation, or encroach on the prerogatives of man; but that each individual may lend her aid to the intellectual and moral character of those within her sphere". Her collection Poems for Our Children, which includes the now-famous "Mary Had a Little Lamb", was published in 1830, though its original title was "Mary's Lamb". The poem was intentionally written for children
, an audience for which many women poets of this period were writing. Hale founded the Seaman's Aid Society in 1833 to assist the surviving families of Boston sailors who died at sea.
Louis Antoine Godey
of Philadelphia wanted to hire Hale as the editor of his journal Godey's Lady's Book
. He bought the Ladies' Magazine, now renamed American Ladies' Magazine, and merged it with his journal. In 1837 Hale began working as editor of the expanded Godey's Lady's Book but insisted she edit from Boston while her youngest son, William, attended Harvard College
. She remained editor at Godey's for forty years, retiring almost at the age of ninety in 1877. During her tenure at Godey's, several important women contributed poetry and prose to the magazine, including Lydia Sigourney
, Caroline Lee Hentz
, Elizabeth F. Ellet
, and Frances Sargent Osgood
. Other notable contributors included Nathaniel Hawthorne
, Oliver Wendell Holmes
, Washington Irving
, James Kirke Paulding
, William Gilmore Simms
, and Nathaniel Parker Willis
. During this time, she became one of the most important and influential arbiters of American taste. In its day, Godey's, with no significant competitors, had an influence unimaginable for any single publication today. The magazine is credited with an ability to influence fashions not only for women's clothes, but also in domestic architecture. Godey's published house plans that were copied by home builders nationwide.
During this time, Hale wrote many novels and poems, publishing nearly fifty volumes of work by the end of her life. She also edited several issues of the annual gift book
The Opal
beginning in the 1840s.
Hale retired from editorial duties in 1877 at the age of 89. The same year, Thomas Edison
spoke the opening lines of "Mary's Lamb": the first ever recorded on his newly invented phonograph
. Hale died at her home, 1413 Locust Street in Philadelphia, on April 30, 1879. She is buried in a simple grave in the Laurel Hill Cemetery
, Ridge Ave., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Hale, as a successful and popular editor, was respected as an arbiter of taste for middle-class women in matters of fashion, cooking, literature, and morality. In her work, however, she was reinforcing stereotypical gender roles, specifically domestic roles for women, and celebrated the "separate sphere" for women while casually trying to expand on it. For example, she believed that women shaped the morals of society, and pushed for women to write morally uplifting novels. She wrote that "while the ocean of political life is heaving and raging with the storm of partisan passions among the men of America... [women as] the true conservators of peace and good-will, should be careful to cultivate every gentle feeling". She did not support women's suffrage
and instead believed in the "secret, silent influence of women" to sway men voters.
Hale was an advocate for education. She supported play
and physical education
as important learning experiences for children. She wrote in 1829 that "Physical health and its attendant cheerfulness promote a happy tone of moral feeling, and they are quite indispensable to successful intellectual effort." More specifically, she was an early advocate of women's education, particularly higher education
for women; she helped in the founding of Vassar College
. Her championship of education for women began with her editorship of the Ladies' Magazine and continued until she retired. She wrote no fewer than seventeen articles and editorials devoted to the subject of women's education, and is credited with helping make the founding of an all-women's college acceptable to a public unaccustomed to the idea. Her efforts in promoting women's education were rewarded in 1860 when the Baltimore Female College awarded her a medal "for distinguished services in the cause of female education". As an editor, she created a section headed "Employment for Women" beginning in 1852 discussing women's attempts to enter the workforce. She also published the works of Catharine Beecher
, Emma Willard
and other early advocates of education for women.
Hale was also a strong advocate of the American nation and union. In the 1820s and 1830s, a time when other American magazines merely compiled and reprinted articles from British periodicals, Hale was among the leaders of a group of American editors who insisted on publishing American writers. In practical terms, this meant that she sometimes personally wrote half of the material published in the Ladies' Magazine. In later years, it meant that she particularly liked to publish fiction with American themes, the frontier, and historical fiction set during the American Revolution. Hale adamantly opposed slavery and was strongly devoted to the Union
. She campaigned in her pages for a unified American culture and nation, frequently running stories in which southerners and northerners fought together against the British, or in which a southerner and a northerner fell in love and married.
Hale is credited as the individual most responsible for making Thanksgiving
a national holiday in the United States; it had previously been celebrated only in New England. Each state scheduled its own holiday, some as early as October and others as late as January; it was largely unknown in the American South. Her advocacy for the national holiday began in 1846 and lasted 17 years before it was successful. In support of the proposed national holiday, she wrote letters to five Presidents of the United States -- Zachary Taylor
, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce
, James Buchanan
, and Abraham Lincoln
. Her initial letters failed to persuade, but the letter she wrote to Lincoln did convince him to support legislation establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving in 1863. The new national holiday was considered a unifying day after the stress of the American Civil War
. Prior to the addition of Thanksgiving, the only national holidays celebrated in the United States were Washington's Birthday
and Independence Day
.
Hale advocated for the preservation of George Washington
's Mount Vernon
plantation, as a symbol of patriotism that both the Northern and Southern United States could all support.
She raised the $30,000 in Boston for the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument
. When construction stalled, Hale asked her readers to donate a dollar each and also organized a week-long craft fair at Quincy Market
. The fair sold handmade jewelry, quilts, baskets, jams, jellies, cakes, pies, and autographed letters from Washington, James Madison
, and the Marquis de Lafayette. She "made sure the 221-foot obilisk that commemorates the battle of Bunker Hill got built." As "'Oprah and Martha Stewart
combined,'" Hale "organized a giant craft fair at Quincy Market." It was much more than a "bake sale
" - "refreshments were sold ... but they brought in only a fraction of the profit."
Liberty Ship
#1538 (1943–1972) was named in her honor.
A prestigious literary prize, the Sarah Josepha Hale Award, is named for her.
She was further honored as the fourth in a series of historical bobblehead dolls created by the New Hampshire Historical Society and sold in their museum store in Concord, New Hampshire
.
Hale is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA)
on April 30.
Hale was also honored by having a New York City Board of Education
vocational high school named after her. Sarah J. Hale High School was located on the corner of Dean and Pacific streets in Brooklyn, New York
. The school closed in June 2001.
Nursery rhyme
The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...
"Mary Had a Little Lamb". She famously campaigned for the creation of the American holiday known as Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...
, and for the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument
Bunker Hill Monument
-External links:****: cultural context**...
.
Biography
Hale was born in NewportNewport, New Hampshire
Newport is a town in and the county seat of Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States. It is west-northwest of Concord. The population was 6,507 at the 2010 census. A covered bridge is in the northwest...
, New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
to Captain Gordon Buell and Martha Whittlesay Buell. Her parents believed in equal education for both sexes. Early on in her life, she was educated by her mother and her brother Horatio who taught her what he had learned at Dartmouth
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
; later on, Hale was an autodidact
Autodidacticism
Autodidacticism is self-education or self-directed learning. In a sense, autodidacticism is "learning on your own" or "by yourself", and an autodidact is a person who teaches him or herself something. The term has its roots in the Ancient Greek words αὐτός and διδακτικός...
.
While working as a schoolteacher in 1811, her father opened a tavern called The Rising Sun in Newport; she met David Hale the same year. The couple married at The Rising Sun, on October 23, 1813, and had five children: David (1815), Horatio (1817), Frances (1819), Sarah (1820), William (1822). David Hale, a lawyer, died in 1822 and, in perpetual mourning, Sarah Josepha Hale wore black for the rest of her life.
In 1823, with the monetary support of her late husband's Freemason lodge, she published a collection of her poems titled The Genius of Oblivion.
Her novel, published in the U.S. under the title Northwood: Life North and South and in London under the title, A New England Tale, made her one of the first American women novelists and one of the first of either gender to write a book about slavery. The book, which espoused New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
virtues as the model to follow for national prosperity, was immediately successful. The novel not only espoused New England values, but supported the re-Africanization of slaves in the colony of Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
. It is an argument for Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
's apprehension regarding the difficulty the races would encounter (and have encountered) in living together with the specter of slavery between them. In her introduction to the second edition (1852) Sarah Hale writes in the spirit that is characteristic of the principles by which she lived, "The great error of those who would sever the Union rather than see a slave within its borders, is, that they forget the master is their brother, as well as the servant; and that the spirit which seeks to do good to all and evil to none is the only true Christian philanthropy." The premise of her book is just that. While slavery hurts and dehumanizes slaves absolutely, it also dehumanizes the masters and retards the psychological, moral and technological progress of their world.
The book garnered praise from Reverend John Blake, who asked Hale to move to Boston to serve as the editor of his journal, Ladies' Magazine
Ladies' Magazine
The Ladies' Magazine was an early magazine for women published in Boston, Massachusetts. Also known as Ladies Magazine and Literary Gazette and , later as American Ladies Magazine, it was designed to be American, and named to separate itself from the Lady's Magazine of London...
. She agreed and, from 1828 until 1836, she served as editor in Boston, though she preferred being called an "editress". Hale hoped the magazine would help in educating women, as she wrote, "not that they may usurp the situation, or encroach on the prerogatives of man; but that each individual may lend her aid to the intellectual and moral character of those within her sphere". Her collection Poems for Our Children, which includes the now-famous "Mary Had a Little Lamb", was published in 1830, though its original title was "Mary's Lamb". The poem was intentionally written for children
Children's poetry
Children's poetry is poetry written for, a stupid reson as she says or appropriate for children. This may include folk poetry ; poetry written intentionally for young people Children's poetry is poetry written for, a stupid reson as she says or appropriate for children. This may include folk...
, an audience for which many women poets of this period were writing. Hale founded the Seaman's Aid Society in 1833 to assist the surviving families of Boston sailors who died at sea.
Louis Antoine Godey
Louis Antoine Godey
Louis Antoine Godey was an American editor and publisher, known as the founder of Godey's Lady's Book, the first successful American women's fashion magazine.-Biography:...
of Philadelphia wanted to hire Hale as the editor of his journal Godey's Lady's Book
Godey's Lady's Book
Godey's Lady's Book, alternatively known as Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book, was a United States magazine which was published in Philadelphia. It was the most widely circulated magazine in the period before the Civil War. Its circulation rose from 70,000 in the 1840s to 150,000 in 1860...
. He bought the Ladies' Magazine, now renamed American Ladies' Magazine, and merged it with his journal. In 1837 Hale began working as editor of the expanded Godey's Lady's Book but insisted she edit from Boston while her youngest son, William, attended Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
. She remained editor at Godey's for forty years, retiring almost at the age of ninety in 1877. During her tenure at Godey's, several important women contributed poetry and prose to the magazine, including Lydia Sigourney
Lydia Sigourney
Lydia Huntley Sigourney , née Lydia Howard Huntley, was a popular American poet during the early and mid 19th century. She was commonly known as the "Sweet Singer of Hartford". Most of her works were published with just her married name Mrs. Sigourney.-Early life:Mrs...
, Caroline Lee Hentz
Caroline Lee Hentz
Caroline Lee Whiting Hentz was an American novelist and author, most noted for her opposition to the abolitionist movement and her widely-read rebuttal to the popular anti-slavery book, Uncle Tom's Cabin...
, Elizabeth F. Ellet
Elizabeth F. Ellet
Elizabeth Fries Lummis Ellet was an American writer, historian and poet. She was the first writer to record the lives of women who contributed to the American Revolutionary War....
, and Frances Sargent Osgood
Frances Sargent Osgood
Frances Sargent Osgood was an American poet and one of the most popular women writers during her time...
. Other notable contributors included Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
, Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was an American physician, professor, lecturer, and author. Regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century, he is considered a member of the Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat...
, Washington Irving
Washington Irving
Washington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works...
, James Kirke Paulding
James Kirke Paulding
James Kirke Paulding was an American writer and, for a time, the United States Secretary of the Navy.-Biography:...
, William Gilmore Simms
William Gilmore Simms
William Gilmore Simms was a poet, novelist and historian from the American South. His writings achieved great prominence during the 19th century, with Edgar Allan Poe pronouncing him the best novelist America had ever produced...
, and Nathaniel Parker Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis , also known as N. P. Willis, was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former...
. During this time, she became one of the most important and influential arbiters of American taste. In its day, Godey's, with no significant competitors, had an influence unimaginable for any single publication today. The magazine is credited with an ability to influence fashions not only for women's clothes, but also in domestic architecture. Godey's published house plans that were copied by home builders nationwide.
During this time, Hale wrote many novels and poems, publishing nearly fifty volumes of work by the end of her life. She also edited several issues of the annual gift book
Gift book
Gift books, literary annuals or a keepsake, were 19th century books, often lavishly decorated, which collected essays, short fiction, and poetry. They were primarily published in the autumn, in time for the holiday season and were intended to be given away rather than read by the purchaser...
The Opal
The Opal (annual)
The Opal, A Pure Gift for the Holy Days, was an annual gift book, founded by Rufus Wilmot Griswold and published in New York by John C. Riker, from 1844 to 1849. Content included short stories, illustrations and poems....
beginning in the 1840s.
Hale retired from editorial duties in 1877 at the age of 89. The same year, Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
spoke the opening lines of "Mary's Lamb": the first ever recorded on his newly invented phonograph
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
. Hale died at her home, 1413 Locust Street in Philadelphia, on April 30, 1879. She is buried in a simple grave in the Laurel Hill Cemetery
Laurel Hill Cemetery
Laurel Hill Cemetery, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the second major garden or rural cemetery in the United States. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998, one of only a few cemeteries to receive the distinction....
, Ridge Ave., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Beliefs
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
and instead believed in the "secret, silent influence of women" to sway men voters.
Hale was an advocate for education. She supported play
Play (activity)
Play is a term employed in ethology and psychology to describe to a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment...
and physical education
Physical education
Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
as important learning experiences for children. She wrote in 1829 that "Physical health and its attendant cheerfulness promote a happy tone of moral feeling, and they are quite indispensable to successful intellectual effort." More specifically, she was an early advocate of women's education, particularly higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
for women; she helped in the founding of Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
. Her championship of education for women began with her editorship of the Ladies' Magazine and continued until she retired. She wrote no fewer than seventeen articles and editorials devoted to the subject of women's education, and is credited with helping make the founding of an all-women's college acceptable to a public unaccustomed to the idea. Her efforts in promoting women's education were rewarded in 1860 when the Baltimore Female College awarded her a medal "for distinguished services in the cause of female education". As an editor, she created a section headed "Employment for Women" beginning in 1852 discussing women's attempts to enter the workforce. She also published the works of Catharine Beecher
Catharine Beecher
Catharine Esther Beecher was an American educator known for her forthright opinions on women's education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of kindergarten into children's education....
, Emma Willard
Emma Willard
Emma Hart Willard was an American women’s rights activist who dedicated her life to education. She worked in several schools and founded the first school for women’s higher education, the Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York...
and other early advocates of education for women.
Hale was also a strong advocate of the American nation and union. In the 1820s and 1830s, a time when other American magazines merely compiled and reprinted articles from British periodicals, Hale was among the leaders of a group of American editors who insisted on publishing American writers. In practical terms, this meant that she sometimes personally wrote half of the material published in the Ladies' Magazine. In later years, it meant that she particularly liked to publish fiction with American themes, the frontier, and historical fiction set during the American Revolution. Hale adamantly opposed slavery and was strongly devoted to the Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
. She campaigned in her pages for a unified American culture and nation, frequently running stories in which southerners and northerners fought together against the British, or in which a southerner and a northerner fell in love and married.
Legacy
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...
a national holiday in the United States; it had previously been celebrated only in New England. Each state scheduled its own holiday, some as early as October and others as late as January; it was largely unknown in the American South. Her advocacy for the national holiday began in 1846 and lasted 17 years before it was successful. In support of the proposed national holiday, she wrote letters to five Presidents of the United States -- Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...
, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce was the 14th President of the United States and is the only President from New Hampshire. Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general in the Army...
, James Buchanan
James Buchanan
James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....
, and Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. Her initial letters failed to persuade, but the letter she wrote to Lincoln did convince him to support legislation establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving in 1863. The new national holiday was considered a unifying day after the stress of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Prior to the addition of Thanksgiving, the only national holidays celebrated in the United States were Washington's Birthday
Washington's Birthday
Washington's Birthday is a United States federal holiday celebrated on the third Monday of February in honor of George Washington, the first President of the United States. It is also commonly known as Presidents Day...
and Independence Day
Independence Day (United States)
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
.
Hale advocated for the preservation of George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
's Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon
The name Mount Vernon is a dedication to the English Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon. It was first applied to Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate of George Washington, the first President of the United States...
plantation, as a symbol of patriotism that both the Northern and Southern United States could all support.
She raised the $30,000 in Boston for the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument
Bunker Hill Monument
-External links:****: cultural context**...
. When construction stalled, Hale asked her readers to donate a dollar each and also organized a week-long craft fair at Quincy Market
Quincy Market
Quincy Market is a historic building near Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It was constructed 1824–1826 and named in honor of Mayor Josiah Quincy, who organized its construction without any tax or debt.-History:...
. The fair sold handmade jewelry, quilts, baskets, jams, jellies, cakes, pies, and autographed letters from Washington, James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
, and the Marquis de Lafayette. She "made sure the 221-foot obilisk that commemorates the battle of Bunker Hill got built." As "'Oprah and Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart is an American business magnate, author, magazine publisher, and television personality. As founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she has gained success through a variety of business ventures, encompassing publishing, broadcasting, and merchandising...
combined,'" Hale "organized a giant craft fair at Quincy Market." It was much more than a "bake sale
Bake sale
A bake sale is a fundraising activity where baked goods such as doughnuts, cupcakes and cookies, sometimes along with ethnic foods, are sold. Bake sales are usually held by small, non-profit organizations, such as clubs, school groups and charitable organizations...
" - "refreshments were sold ... but they brought in only a fraction of the profit."
Liberty Ship
Liberty ship
Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by...
#1538 (1943–1972) was named in her honor.
A prestigious literary prize, the Sarah Josepha Hale Award, is named for her.
She was further honored as the fourth in a series of historical bobblehead dolls created by the New Hampshire Historical Society and sold in their museum store in Concord, New Hampshire
Concord, New Hampshire
The city of Concord is the capital of the state of New Hampshire in the United States. It is also the county seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2010 census, its population was 42,695....
.
Hale is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA)
Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church in the United States of America)
The veneration of saints in the Episcopal Church is a continuation of an ancient tradition from the early Church which honors important people of the Christian faith. The usage of the term "saint" is similar to Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Those in the Anglo-Catholic tradition may...
on April 30.
Hale was also honored by having a New York City Board of Education
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
vocational high school named after her. Sarah J. Hale High School was located on the corner of Dean and Pacific streets in Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
. The school closed in June 2001.
Further reading
- Anderson, Laurie Halse. Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. ISBN 0-689-85143-X
- Baym, Nina. "Onward Christian Women: Sarah J. Hale's History of the World", The New England QuarterlyThe New England QuarterlyThe New England Quarterly is a peer-reviewed academic journal consisting of articles on New England's cultural, literary, political, and social history. The journal contains essays, interpretations of traditional texts, essay reviews and book reviews...
. Vol. 63, No. 2, p. 249. June 1990. - Dubois, Muriel L. To My Countrywomen: The Life of Sarah Josepha Hale. Bedfored, New Hampshire: Apprentice Shop Books, 2006. ISBN 978-0-972-34101-1
- Finley, Ruth Elbright. The Lady of Godey's. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1931.
- Fryatt, Norma R. Sarah Josepha Hale: The Life and Times of a Nineteenth-Century Woman. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1975. ISBN 0-801-56568-5
- Mott, Frank Luther. A History of American Magazines. Cambridge: Harvard University PressHarvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, 1968. - Okker, Patricia. Our Sister Editors: Sarah J. Hale and the Tradition of Nineteenth-century American Women Editors. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1995.
- Rogers, Sherbrooke. Sarah Josepha Hale: A New England Pioneer, 1788-1879. Grantham, New Hampshire: Tompson & Rutter, 1985. ISBN 0-936-98810-X
- Tonkovich, Nicole. http://books.google.com/books?id=cbtZAAAAMAAJ&q=Domesticity+with+a+Difference:+The+Nonfiction+of+Catharine+Beecher,+Sarah+J.+Hale,+Fanny+Fern,+and+Margaret+Fuller&dq=Domesticity+with+a+Difference:+The+Nonfiction+of+Catharine+Beecher,+Sarah+J.+Hale,+Fanny+Fern,+and+Margaret+Fuller&client=firefox-a&pgis=1 Domesticity with a Difference: The Nonfiction of Catharine Beecher, Sarah J. Hale, Fanny Fern, and Margaret Fuller]. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of MississippiUniversity Press of MississippiThe University Press of Mississippi, founded in 1970, is a publisher that is sponsored by the eight state universities in Mississippi:*Alcorn State University*Delta State University*Jackson State University*Mississippi State University...
, 1997. ISBN 0-878-05993-8
External links
- Sarah Hale: The Mother of Thanksgiving Audio slide show: Historian Anne Blue Wills tells the story of Sarah Hale on "BackStory with the American History Guys"
- Lehigh.edu, Etext Library: Sarah Josepha Hale
- Woman Writers: Sarah Josepha Hale
- Spring Flowers by Sarah Josepha Hale from the University of Florida Digital CollectionsUniversity of Florida Digital CollectionsThe University of Florida Digital Collections are supported by the University of Florida Digital Library Center in the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. The University of Florida Digital Collections comprise a constantly growing collection of digital resources from the...