Hamlet railed, “Frailty, thy name is woman!” and in this vein, female Victorians struggled against the slings and arrows of misogyny: they could not vote, serve on jury duty, or attend university. Their corseted bodies mirrored the shackles society placed on their minds. Despite these restrictions, one lady launched not just one, but two beloved pieces of Americana. Although her contributions differed in nature, they shared the commonality of involving animals—one a lamb, the other a turkey.
This mother of invention, Sarah Josepha, was born in 1788 on a farm in Newport, New Hampshire, to Revolutionary War hero Captain John Gordon and Martha Buell. Contrary to the mores of her era, her parents believed in education for girls, and her elder brother Horatio, a graduate of Dartmouth, served as her tutor. At age eighteen, she took on the nontraditional role of a teacher at a private school, and in her spare time, she penned poetry. Sarah married lawyer and Freemason David Hale in 1813; when she was pregnant with their fifth child, her husband died from pneumonia. The widow, as Queen Victoria did after the passing of Albert, never wore any color but black.
As his will left her only slightly wealthier than Old Mother Hubbard, Sarah turned to writing and, with the support of David’s Masonic lodge, published a collection of poems followed by an 1827 novel, Northwood; or, Life North and South. This book made her the country’s first female author, as well as the first to write about the evils of slavery. Its premise was that slaves should be relocated to Liberia rather than toil as American beasts of burden.
The novel attracted the attention of the Reverend John Blake, who made Hale the country’s first female editor when he hired her for his Boston publication, The Lady’s Magazine; after this became Godey’s Lady’s Book—the Good Housekeeping of its day—she settled in Philadelphia. The periodical, renowned as much for its dress patterns as for its uplifting articles, was referred to as the Victorian Bible of the Parlor. Hale became the last word on fashion and manners in one hundred and fifty thousand homes, and she remained at its helm until age ninety, a year before her death. Sarah wielded her pen not only to tell women what to wear, but also to shape public sentiment. Its 1830 edition included Sarah’s poem, “Mary’s Lamb,” which would later become the beloved nursery rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Legend has it that the poem was inspired by Mary Elizabeth Sawyer, whose pet lamb followed her to school—a prank suggested by her brother. Devoutly religious, Hale intended it as a religious allegory for children: Mary as the mother of God, the lamb as Jesus, “with a fleece as white as snow” that symbolized the purity of Christianity. In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, and the world’s first recording was the scientist reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
Sarah was the Martha Stewart of the pre-Civil War era, filling her hugely popular magazine with advice on how to build a dream cottage, cook a seven-course dinner, and decorate the perfect spring hat. Under her leadership, Godey’s Lady’s Book popularized white wedding dresses and Christmas trees, trends often credited to Queen Victoria. She also published the works of well-known authors such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In 2012, an anonymous bidder purchased a letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Ms. Hale for $164,000; in it, the mystery writer declined to write an article for her magazine because, after a recent bout of illness, he was too caught up in other literary obligations.
Sarah was a cheerleader of many causes, and women’s education was a priority for her. She deplored the widespread illiteracy among her sex, and in her role as editor she was instrumental in supporting Matthew Vassar’s successful venture to found his eponymous women’s college. Sarah also helped solicit the thirty thousand dollars (equivalent to eight hundred thousand dollars today) needed for the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston, and she also worked to obtain property ownership rights for wives. Despite her strides toward the goal of female emancipation, she still subscribed to the cult of “true womanhood” which entailed that the highest calling for her sex was to maintain a Christian nursery, one ruled by the Lamb.
Hale already had a formidable roll call of accomplishments, but her greatest one was yet to come. After Christmas, the busiest travel day of the year is Thanksgiving. The good china makes an appearance, and it is acceptable to watch football all day and to eat oneself into a turkey coma—the reason many don the unofficial festive garb of pants with elastic waists. The turkey consolidated its position of honor at the center of the table thanks to the late nineteenth-century marketing efforts of the poultry industry. Had it not been for this campaign, a different animal would be receiving the President’s annual Thanksgiving pardon. Most assume we have the Pilgrims to thank for the turkey, but like for most things, there is a backstory. More than those who alighted from the Mayflower, it was Sarah Josepha Hale who gave America Thanksgiving. Until she came along, the only national holiday was Independence Day, which exclusively featured men parading down the street, creating large explosions and consuming massive quantities of liquor. Women were relegated to the role of spectator, waving handkerchiefs or serving as décor on the occasional float. In Northwood, Hale included an entire chapter about a traditional New England Thanksgiving celebration, and as the north/south conflict deepened, she became ever more committed to this holiday’s cause. She believed that regional observances should be national, and as such would help bind the fractured country. In an 1859 editorial, she wrote, “Everything that contributes to bind us in one vast empire together, to quicken the sympathy that makes us feel from the icy north to the sunny south that we are one family, each a member of a great and free nation, not merely the unit of a remote locality, is worthy of being cherished.”
Although Thanksgiving had been observed since 1621 when William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth Plantation, called for a day of prayer and thanksgiving, it had evolved as a haphazard tradition. Thanksgiving occurred on different days in various states—mostly in autumn—while some parts of the country ignored it in the spirit that it violated the separation of church and state. These ad hoc celebrations were primarily invoked in response to specific events. They were religious in nature, intended to ask God’s help in coping with hardships, or to offer a day of prayer for times of prosperity. In 1863, Lincoln designated four Thanksgiving days, including one to celebrate Gettysburg and Vicksburg, while Jefferson Davis proclaimed Thanksgivings after each of the two Confederate victories at Manassas.
In vain, Sarah had petitioned Presidents Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan to set aside a uniform day, but for thirty-six years her pleas fell on deaf ears. She hit pay dirt when her letter reached Abraham Lincoln. She wrote, “Sir, permit me as editress of ‘Lady’s Book,’ to request a few minutes of your precious time, while laying before you a subject of deep interest to myself and—as I trust—even to the President of the Republic of some importance. This subject is to have the day of our annual Thanksgiving made a national and fixed union festival.” She added that the latter should occur on the last Thursday of November, because that was when George Washington had declared the first observance in 1789.
On October 3, 1863, five days after receiving Sarah’s letter, President Lincoln declared, “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” In that fall, Lincoln had precious little of which to be thankful. The Union victory at Gettysburg the previous July had come with a terrible price—a combined fifty-one thousand estimated casualties and nearly eight thousand dead. Enraged by the draft laws, rioters in Northern cities such as New York went on bloody rampages. Moreover, the President and his wife Mary were in mourning for the loss of their eleven-year-old son Willie, who had died the year before. Lincoln’s fervent hope was that a standardized celebration would help unite a divided United States.
Sarah Josepha Hale remains an unsung heroine. However, there is a memorial to her in Newport that showcases her role as America’s first female novelist and editor, foundational fundraiser for Vassar College, the composer of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and the mother who birthed a national holiday. It features a bronze bust of the Victorian woman—arms in shackles to highlight her anti-slavery views—that sits atop a black pillar, representative of her long widowhood. Her name also lives on in her hometown, where an annual award is presented to distinguished writers. Its first recipient was Robert Frost; John F. Kennedy reluctantly turned down the honor because of a prior—and fateful—commitment in Dallas.
Looking back at the accomplishments of an indefatigable woman, everywhere that Sarah went—like Mary’s lamb—success was sure to go.