Sarah Josepha Hale (1788–1879) was an American writer and editor. For forty years she edited Godey's Lady's Book, the most influential women's magazine of nineteenth-century America. She wrote Mary Had a Little Lamb and campaigned successfully for a national Thanksgiving Day.
Works
Poems for our Children
New Hampshire
Sarah Josepha Buell was born on 24 October 1788 in Newport, New Hampshire. Her mother and her brother, a student at Dartmouth, taught her what he was learning at college, an education unusual for a girl.
She ran a small school, then in 1813 married David Hale, a lawyer, who encouraged her writing. His death in 1822 left her with five children to support.
Writer and editor
Her novel Northwood (1827), one of the first by an American woman, contrasted life in New England and the South. Poems for Our Children (1830) included Mary's Lamb.
In 1828 she became editor of the Ladies' Magazine in Boston, which in 1837 merged into Godey's Lady's Book in Philadelphia. She edited it until 1877, promoting women's education and women writers.
Thanksgiving
For seventeen years she wrote editorials and letters to presidents asking for a national day of Thanksgiving. In 1863 Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November a national Thanksgiving Day.
She also helped raise funds to complete the Bunker Hill Monument and supported the founding of Vassar College. She died in Philadelphia on 30 April 1879.
Anecdotes
A letter to Lincoln
On 28 September 1863 Hale wrote to Lincoln asking him to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. A few days later, on 3 October, he issued his proclamation.
Mary and her lamb
The poem was said to be based on a real event: Mary Sawyer of Sterling, Massachusetts, brought her pet lamb to school around 1815. Hale's authorship of the whole poem has been disputed by some.
Frequently asked questions
Did Sarah Josepha Hale write Mary Had a Little Lamb?
She published it in 1830 as Mary's Lamb in Poems for Our Children; part of it has also been claimed for John Roulstone.
What was Godey's Lady's Book?
The most popular women's magazine in nineteenth-century America, edited by Hale from 1837 to 1877.
Why is Hale called the mother of Thanksgiving?
Because her long campaign led Lincoln to proclaim a national Thanksgiving Day in 1863.