Sarah Josepha Hale, the Mother of Thanksgiving

Born in 1788 in Newport, New Hampshire, Hale obtained her education from her mother and brother, Horatio. Horatio attended Dartmouth and would pass along his lessons to his sister. When Horatio earned his diploma, he then passed along a diploma from the "Horatio Gates Buell College" to his younger sister, declaring she had earned her degree in the Arts, Summa Cum Laude.

Hale spent a few years teaching at a school she started near her home until she met David Hale, a young lawyer. Both had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and spent nine married years studying together. During this time, Sarah began writing and getting her work published in local newspapers.

Their wedded bliss was cut short when David Hale died of pneumonia while Sarah was pregnant with their fifth child. The child arrived two weeks after his father's death.

Hale's husband had been a member of the local Freemason's lodge. With their help, Sarah and her sister-in-law opened a millinery shop. But this work did little to satisfy the creative side of Sarah Hale.

Again, with the help of the Freemason, Hale published her first book, "The Genius of Oblivion and Other Original Poems."

Encouraged by the success of her first volume, Hale left the millinery business and began her writing career. Her short stories, poems, and articles about raising children began appearing in magazines. A collaboration with Lowell Mason, a composer and music educator, prompted a second book "Poems for Our Children." This book contained the now very well-known childhood standard, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" originally published under the title "Mary's Lamb."

Quite the ambitious woman, Hale then penned a fictitious novel, "Northwood: A Tale of New England." It established Hale as one of the first American women novelists. It also was the first novel to tackle the issue of slavery. The novel supported the re-Africanization of slaves in the colony of Liberia.

In the second edition, published in 1852 under the title "Northwood: Life North and South," Hale wrote in her introduction, "The great error of those who would sever the Union rather than see a slave within its borders, is, that they forget the master is their brother, as well as the servant; and that the spirit which seeks to do good to all and evil to none is the only true Christian philanthropy."

The first edition of the novel came to the attention of Reverend John Blake. His plans to publish a new women's magazine, the Ladies Magazine, included hiring Hale as its editor. Hale moved to Boston and served as the magazine's editor for twelve years.

Hale supported women's rights to education and persuaded her friend Michael Vassar to start a school for women with women educators. Vassar College opened with twenty-two women instructors and eight male instructors.

While she lived in Boston, Hale was also community-oriented. She founded the "Seaman's Society" to help women whose spouses had died at sea to support themselves by providing job skills as well as helping to feed and house the women and their families.

She also helped raise funds to complete the Bunker Hill Monument and crusaded to preserve Mount Vernon.

Ladies Magazine was sold in 1837 to Louis Godey, who published Louis Godey's Lady's Book. He merged the tow publications and hired Hale as editor. She worked for Godey's Lady's Book for forty years, retiring in 1877 at the age of 89, just two years before her death. Ironically, that same year was also when Thomas Edison recorded, for the first time ever, the opening lines of "Mary's Lamb" on his phonograph.

Hale's most significant contribution, however, began in 1827. She petitioned for the creation of a national holiday of giving thanks through five administrations: Zachary Taylor, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln was the president who saw the possible beneficial healing of a torn nation by establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving. In the year 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the final Thursday in November as national Thanksgiving day. It was observed as a national holiday for the first time that same year.

In 1868, Hale share this poem in Godey's Lady's Book:

"Our National Thanksgiving"

All the blessings of the fields,
All the stores the garden yields,
All the plenty summer pours,
Autumn's rich, o'erflowing stores,
Peace, prosperity and health,
Private bliss and public wealth,
Knowledge with its gladdening streams,
Pure religion's holier beams:
Lord, for these our souls shall raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise.[1]

Hale died in 1979 at the age of 91.

Liberty Ship number 1538 (1943-1972) was named in her honor and the Sarah Josepha Hale Award, a literary prize given by the Richards Free Library of Newport, New Hampshire, is named for her.

The Sarah Josepha Hale Award honors "a writer who, through his or her life work, maintains a connection to New England."

Poet and novelist Raymond Peckham Holden founded the Friends of the Richards Free Library to raise money for the library. After bake sales and arts festivals failed to generate enough money, Holden came up with the idea to have his friend, Robert Frost speak. If Frost made a personal appearance, not only would people pay to see him and hear him speak, but other well-known authors would follow.

Being an author himself, Holden knew money would not be enough to attract the more prestigious authors he had in mind. So he created the Sarah Josepha Hale Award to be given to those speakers.

A panel of twelve judges - authors, educators, publishers and public figures among them - determine the author to receive the award. The policy of receiving the award is that the recipient show up in person, thereby justifying it as a fundraising event. Should the recipient be unable to attend in person, another author is chosen to receive the award in his or her place.

Ironically, President John F. Kennedy was to be the recipient of the award in 1963. He was unable to attend due to a prior engagement. John Hershey was chosen to receive the award instead and gave his acceptance speech on the day Kennedy was shot in Dallas.

[1] Leadership