Sarah Josepha Hale

Sarah Josepha Hale

Interesting Fact #2

Interesting Fact #1

Although she advocated for women education and women’s roles in society she never joined the women’s rights movement.

She rejected Godey’s offer the first time he approached her to edit his Lady’s Book but Godey didn’t give up and offered a second time with more benefits for Hale and she accepted, later moved to Philadelphia.

Interesting Fact #3

Aside from her writings, she whole heartedly believed that Thanksgivings should be a national holiday just like the Fourth of July is.

By: Patricia Puente

Birth, Residency, Death

Biography

Historical Significance

Inspiration

Sarah was born in a small farm on October 24, 1788 in New Port, New Hampshire. She moved to Boston in 1827, five years after the death of her husband. In 1841 she moved to Philadelphia where she resided until her death at age ninety-one on April 30, 1879.

Sarah Josepha Hale was born in New Hampshire where she received little education from family members as well as self-teaching through reading. She married a lawyer, David Hale and had five kids with him. After his death in 1822, she makes history throughout a sixty-year period of her writings. The success of her first book of poems with the collaboration of her sister-in-law marked the start to her ability to advocate education and career opportunities for women by receiving an editorial job in Boston. She helped fund organizations that helped education-related issues. Most notably she helped fund a college for women known as Vassar College. Later in her life moved to Philadelphia to become editor for Godey’s Lady’s Book until retirement in 1877.

It is really inspiring to see how during this time period, where women didn’t have a voice, she took “no” for an answer. We can see this behavior when she lobbies four presidents in order to persuade them to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. She finally succeeds after lobbying president Abraham Lincoln.

Sarah Hale is a historical figure because through her work of being an editor she advocated for women education and later women careers into fields such as medical. Personally she would publish articles for the benefit of women to educate themselves by suggesting reading lists. She is most significantly known to people as the writer of Mary Had a Little Lamb and the mother of Thanksgiving.

Work Cited

Her Open Book

• Academic, Britannica. Sarah Josepha Hale . 4 March 2009. 2016. <ezproxy.twu.edu:3318/levels/collegiate/article/38868>.
• Anonymous. "Mrs. Sarah J Hale ." Women's exponent 1879: 249.
• Greenberg, Hope. Sarah J. Hale . 1995. <http://www.uvm.edu/~hag/godey/hale.html>.
• Museum, National Women's History. Sarah J. Hale. n.d. 2016. <https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/sarah-hale/>.

—. The History of Thanksgiving. n.d. 2016. <https://www.nwhm.org/about-nwhm/press/featured-press/thanksgiving>.

—. Women with a Deadline . n.d. 2016. <https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/womenwithdeadlines/wwd10.htm>.

Think About It...

Would Sarah have been a successful advocate for women’s roles in society and education through her editorial job if her husband had not died?

After all, the whole purpose to pursue writing was to raise her children.