Sarah Josepha Hale (1788 - 1879)

Sarah Josepha Hale

Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, born Sarah Josepha Buell, was an American writer, magazine editor, and civic activist.

Sarah Buell received a good home education and married David Hale in 1813, but, finding herself in financial difficulty after her husband's death, she turned to literary work in the 1820s. Her poems were published in local journals and in the collection The Genius of Oblivion (1823). Sarah also wrote several novels during her lifetime.

In 1828, she became editor of the new Boston edition of Ladies' Magazine (from 1834, American Ladies' Magazine). Hale herself wrote much of the wide variety of material for each issue-literary criticism, essays on American life, essays, and poetry, and she supported patriotic and humanitarian organizations, notably the Boston Ladies' Peace Society and the Sailors' Aid Society, which she founded in 1833. She was a lifelong advocate of women's education. During this period she also published Poems for Our Children (1830), containing her most famous work, Mary Had a Little Lamb.

In 1837, in Philadelphia, Hale became editor of Lady's Book, soon to be known as Godey's Lady's Book. During her years as editor, this publication became the most influential and circulating women's magazine published in the country at the time. Hale encouraged American writers: Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and other women writers published in the magazine.

Hale's major accomplishment was Woman's Record; or, Sketches of Distinguished Women, published in 1853, 1869, and 1876. For this project, she produced some 36 volumes describing biographies of women, emphasizing their influence in history on social organization and literature.

Sarah Hale is considered one of the main organizers of the Thanksgiving holiday, and she helped shape the worldview of women of her time.