Great Ladies

[jenna]

While we got onto the topic of great ladies of the Civil War, I thought I would share an article the I wrote for the Bivouac Book quarterly online Civil War magaizine. It is one of the greatest women (my personal feeling, you may obviously have your own) that lived at that time. Sarha J. Hale:

Sarah Josepha Hale was born in 1788 in New Hampshire. A very forward thinking family raised her. Her mother taught Sara how to read and write at a very young age. In 1806 she began her very first school, since there were no common schools for children at that time, and taught from her home for seven years. Her brother went away to college and as he learned and brought things home from school, he shared them with Sarah. She later married David Hale and began her life with as a mother and wife, bearing David four children while he was alive, and a fifth child to him two months after he died of pneumonia. While David was alive they formed a literary group and continued her informal education.

Upon the death of David, she had to turn to his family for money and shelter, since at that time women did not retain control over their husband’s money or home. She began writing and published a work of poetry called the “Genius of Oblivion”. It was a short selection of poetry works that was signed by a woman of New Hampshire. In those days authors did not sign their name to their works, so it is unknown how many of her poems were published. This publication brought her some money and was able to start supporting herself and her children.

After the completion of that book she began work on a novel entitled “Northwood”. It compared the social standings of the North and the South, and came to the basic conclusion that if people would just talk about their differences that things could always be worked out. We think of the differences between the North and the South only being an issue of the Civil War, but it started much further back then that, and Sarah had the foresight to see that things were not going very well. Northwood brought Sarah notoriety and a very steady income, as it was published and sold out four times.

Her next work was entitled “Liberia” and was published in the late 1820’s. It was again a novel, but a touchy novel that concentrated on the issue of slavery and the blacks in general. She wrote this novel as her own ideas, and felt that if the blacks could be sent back to their own country, or a new country all of their own, that the Union could be preserved. Again, this book sold widely, and was very controversial for its time.

Sarah was an Episcopalian, and in the late 1820’s to early 1830’s met an Episcopalian minister who had started a religious school for young women. Impressed by Sarah’s writings, he asked her to write a ladies magazine for the young women of Cornhill School for Ladies. She did so happily for many years. Mr. Louis Antoine Godey, whom had started a ladies book in Philadelphia, and very much-wanted Mrs. Hale to edit his book, approached her several times during her magazine days at the school. He had been doing it for many years, but was impressed by all that Sarah had done, that he wanted her to be the editor. It was unheard of at that time for a woman to have such a prominent job in a man’s world. Sarah declined, for she loved to write her magazine.

In 1837 though, Mr. Godey bought the Cornhill School magazine and Sarah conceded to become the editor of the new Godey’s now that she would be able to continue her work that she had been doing with the other publication. She refused to move from Boston though, and Mr. Godey allowed her to work from there. Later in their shared venture, he was able to convince Sarah to move to Philadelphia, where she lived out the rest of her days.

Mr. Godey let Sarah decide what articles and fashion plates would be included in each monthly edition of the book, under one condition: no politics! And so Sarah concentrated on promoting women’s education and well being. She actually did not want to include the latest fashions from Paris and England, for she felt that it was a waste of a woman’s talent and time to focus on such drivel. But she did include the fashion plates, and Mr. Godey’s request, but did one better to them. She Americanized the fashions. She did not feel that it was right to close a corset so tight to form the “wasp waist” so sought after in France. She promoted exercise for women, and even printed instructions in Godey’s to show how the exercises should be done, and done properly and that with this exercise a woman would be able to enjoy self empowerment and self improvement. She also believed in the power of advertising, and included many paid advertisements in the monthly book, including the first advertisement for the first washing machine. She stated that the way to decrease plagues and diseases was to allow children to play outside and get fresh air, but not in public squares, and so she encouraged communities to set up parks just for kids. And thus the first playgrounds were invented. She promoted American authors and inventions. She became a very good friend of Edgar Allen Poe, when West Point scoffed at the ideas presented in his works, her son, William, proposed that Edgar contact his mother and have his works published in her books. Readers loved his work, and Sarah promoted them.

Although she was an advocate of women’s rights, she was not affiliated with the suffragette groups that came about. She was always a lady and always felt that ladies lived in a man’s world, and that men ran it, but that women could “help”. But she did start a society that worked for the advancement of women’s wages and fair working conditions and the reduction of child labor.

Among her many accomplishments was the creation of the Seaman’s Aid Society, which she herself was the president of for many years. This society was dedicated to helping families with male family members that served in the Navy. It provided clothing and blankets to the men and their families. She was a proponent of women being able to keep what was their husband, in terms of money and property, when he would die, and not have to go to his family for the items which were rightfully her own. She helped organize the first ladies college, known as Vasser College, which was the first collegiate rank for girls. In 1828 she wrote thousands of letters to encourage the formation of the first women’s normal school that concentrated on teaching women to be teachers. She started a column in her book that was “letters from mother” dealing with child psychology. It was the first time that people were made aware that if you taught children they would prosper. In 1850 she pushed for the first women’s medical college and some of the first female nurses came from the school that were taught by Florence Nightingale.

She is also responsible for one of the most noted children’s rhymes, Mary had a Little Lamb. She championed many causes including rescuing the Bunker Hill Memorial and pushing for Mount Vernon to become a national memorial, which by 1860 the Mount Vernon Ladies Society was able to buy the property and turn it into what it is today. She is also credited with starting the first day nurseries for working mothers.

One of her most notable triumphs is her persuasion of President Lincoln signing the Thanksgiving Day proclamation. For years states and groups had been pushing for Thanksgiving to be a national holiday, and when Sarah heard of it, she put it in her books. She thought that this holiday would help preserve the Union and went to the president with that very idea, to save the Union. So on October 3, 1863, Lincoln signed the Thanksgiving proclamation, and the holiday was set for the last Sunday of November.

By 1877 Mr. Godey was very ill, and felt it time to sell the book. And so Sarah wrote her farewell editorial and ended a stellar career as America’s first female editor. Godey’s was sold in 1877, and Sarah retired. She passed away at the age of 91, having lived a very full and fulfilled life, having had a huge hand in shaping women’s lives for years to come.