Sarah Josepha Hale was a woman of great significance to American History. Who was this lady? You've never heard her name? I'm sure you remember the nursery rhyme, "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

Sarah Hale was born on October 24, 1788 near Newport, New Hampshire. Her successful career took off after she turned 40 years old, which is a great encouragement to all midlife women.

Hale's husband, David, and his Masonic friends financed her first publication, The Genius of Oblivion and other Original Poems. When Hale was still in her early thirties, her husband David, a lawyer, died.  She was left with five small children to raise. Finding herself penniless, she supported her family by taking in sewing and writing poetry. By the age of thirty nine, her first novel, Northwood: a Tale of New England became a huge success as the first novel by an American woman.

A year later a British publisher offered her the job of first editor of The Ladies Magazine. Nine years later, she was offered a job at Godey's Lady's Book in Philadelphia. By 1827, Hale was known as "The Lady Editor," and she advocated for a national holiday of Thanksgiving. In 1863, Lincoln issued his famous Thanksgiving Proclamation declaring Thanksgiving a holiday.

Hale fought for the cause of women and children, and became the first to start day nursery schools for children of working women, and recommend public playgrounds for them. She also became the primary person to push equal education for girls, and was known as the foremost editor of the first woman's magazine in America.

In December 1877, at the age of eighty nine, Hale retired from Godey's Lady's Book where she had worked for over forty years. Because of Sarah Hale's persistence and hard work, we celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November each year in America. Sarah Hale died on April 30, 1879, leaving behind not only her literature for American women, but her strength as well.

Bib:
Egermeier's Stories of Great Men & Womnen. Indiana.
The Home Adv. Library: People & Places. Chicago.
Okker, Patricia. Our Sister Editors: Sarah J. Hale and the Tradition of Nineteenth-century American Women Editors. Athens, Ga. University of Georgia Press, 1995.

© 2001jcpinkerton