Thanksgiving Table Talk

A Quick Compendium Biography for the Season

This is a repost from last year. I was about to prepare new content but realized that this would be great information for Thanksgiving table talk; especially as we continue forward together, some of us with joy and some of us with sadness, in this post-election season.

-Randy

Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879) was deeply concerned about the polarization of the United States, as many of us are today. She took action that not only made good happen in her generation but in every generation right up to our own. We find ourselves again in a time of national polarization but we have an opportunity, thanks to Sarah Hale, to take concrete and very practical action that can makegoodhappen in our day as it did in her own.

Ms. Hale is one of those larger-than-life people who doesn’t fit into anyone’s categories. She had a happy marriage for 9 years, but became a single mother of 5 children when her husband suddenly died of pneumonia. Just five years later she published her first novel. What a novel it was. “Northwood,” as it was entitled, supported the freeing of slaves and the repatriating them to Liberia in Africa. It was the first novel about slavery in the United States and one of the first novels written by a woman in America. But that was just the beginning. In the next year, to support her 5 children, she moved to Boston and became the first female editor of a magazine in the United States. In 1841 she and her children moved to Philadelphia so she could become the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book Magazine a post she would hold until her retirement at 89 years of age. By the 1860s the magazine had a circulation of 150,000 readers.

Hale also shared her leadership in other areas. She championed women’s education, especially the training of women as physicians for work in the United States and in Christian work overseas. She was the secretary for the Ladies Medical Mission Society (1851) and when it merged with the Woman’s Union Missionary Society in 1860 she became the head of its Philadelphia branch.

And along the way, she wrote the nursery rhyme “Mary’s Lamb.” Maybe you have heard of it. It begins: “Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow, And every where that Mary went the lamb was sure to go.”

Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow, And every where that Mary went The lamb was sure to go; He followed her to school one day—That was against the rule, It made the children laugh and play, To see a lamb at school.

And so the Teacher turned him out, But still he lingered near, And waited patiently about, Till Mary did appear; And then he ran to her, and laid His head upon her arm, As if he said—"I'm not afraid—You'll keep me from all harm."

"What makes the lamb love Mary so?" The eager children cry—"O, Mary loves the lamb, you know,"The Teacher did reply;—"And you each gentle animal In confidence may bind, And make them follow at your call, If you are always kind.” -Sarah Josepha Hale

But above and beyond all of these accomplishments Sarah Hale gave leadership to three major projects which would strengthen the unity of this country in divisive times. The first project was the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument. The American Revolution was an event in the United States that everyone could support. So through her magazine, she raised $30,000, over one million dollars today, toward the construction of the obelisk commemorating those who fought in the first battle for our independence.

Her next project sought to bring Americans together all over the country, every year, in their own homes, for, as she put it, the “moral and social reunion of Americans.” At the time, Thanksgiving was primarily celebrated in New England, as a way of bringing their families together to renew their relationships in a time of celebration. Harvest celebrations of this kind have been an important part of the cultural fabric of many people and nations in history. But the United States did not have a holiday like that. Ms. Hale began to wonder if Thanksgiving could become a national holiday for the entire country bringing families all over this country together in gratitude for what they have.

So for the next seventeen years, she wrote editorials on the subject for her magazine, letters to each President, every member of Congress, and all of the governors of each state and territory to promote her vision. By 1860, thirty states celebrated Thanksgiving. But it wasn’t until after the Civil War began in 1861 that her dream became a reality. Abraham Lincoln saw that the U.S. desperately needed a common celebration and after reading some of her editorials, decided to proclaim Thanksgiving a national holiday for every state in the Union.

The Civil War ended fifteen months later, after the death of 620,000 American citizens. For the next more than 150 years the majority of Americans, from both sides of the war, gathered together around the table in their homes, every year, on the fourth Thursday of November, to refresh their relationships with one another and to give thanks for their common life in this country.

Two years after her retirement from her editorial work, on April 30, 1879, Sarah Hale died in her home at 1413 Locust Street in Philadelphia. But before her death, she completed one other project to strengthen our ties together as a nation. Her third and final project was to preserve George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon as yet another symbol that both the Northern and Southern United States could support together.

So we come to our own day. The Bunker Hill Monument and Washington’s Mount Vernon home remain intact, but we are once again polarized as a nation. The only solution either side seems to offer is the forced conversion of the other side through the exercise of political power. But we have an opportunity this Thanksgiving to make good happen.. We can take a page from Sarah Hale and direct our energy toward the renewal of our common heritage together. Let’s gather together with people on both sides of the aisle, put down our swords for the day, and give thanks for Sarah Hale, and everyone like her, whose actions have helped us continue together as a nation, through all of our ups and downs and all of our strengths and failings, to be the incredibly blessed people that we are today, even in these very challenging times.

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For more on Sarah Josepha (Buell) Hale:

More on her life: The Lady of Godey’s by Ruth E. Finley.

Her writings:

• Northwood: Or Life North And South, Showing The True Character Of Both by Sarah Josepha Buell

• Woman's Record; or, Sketches of all Distinguished Women, From "The Beginning" Till A.D. 1850; Arranged in Four Eras; With Selections From Female Writers of Every Age by Sarah Josepha Hale

• Godey's Lady's Book 1861, Vol. LXII. Edited by Sarah Josepha Buell