The Woman Who Championed Thanksgiving
Posted December 7th, 2009by Victor Parachin
Each year, when the last Thursday in November rolls around, most Americans stay home from work, enjoy a fantastic meal, maybe watch a little football, and—at least for a few moments—pause to be thankful. It is unlikely that anyone thinks to thank Sarah Josepha Hale on that day, but if it hadn’t been for Sarah, they would almost certainly be at work, as usual.
Sarah Josepha Hale was born in 1788 on a farm in Newport, New Hampshire to Revolutionary War Captain Gordon Buell and Martha Whittlesay Buell. A bright, inquisitive child, she was eager to learn, and received more education than most girls of her era. In fact, she received something like a Dartmouth education even though she never attended the school.
Sarah’s brother, Horatio, was a student at Dartmouth College. Each day when he returned from school, he would explain to Sarah what he had learned. Then the two would do the homework together. When Dartmouth awarded Horatio a diploma, he returned home and awarded Sarah a diploma. Sarah’s diploma declared that Sarah Josepha Buell had graduated from the “Horatio Gates Buell College” with a degree in the arts, summa cum laude.
Love of Learning
At age 18, Sarah founded a private school and became its teacher. She continued teaching until she met a young lawyer, David Hale. They married in 1813. The Hales shared a love of learning, often spending evenings studying subjects as diverse as French and botany. David encouraged Sarah to pursue writing, and her short stories and articles began appearing in local newspapers.
Sarah was pregnant with their fifth child when David died suddenly in 1822. That left her both a widow and the single mother of five. With all those children to support, four under the age of seven, Sarah tried operating a women’s hat shop. Then, after struggling with that enterprise unsuccessfully, Sarah resumed teaching and writing. She published her first book of poems, The Genius of Oblivion. One of the poems from this anthology, “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” is loved by children all over the world.
Sarah continued writing and, in 1827, enjoyed the publication of her first novel, Northwood: A Tale of New England. The novel was unique for its time because the plot included the simmering issue of slavery. The book eventually made its way into the hands of a Boston minister and publisher, Reverend John Blake. At the time, Blake was preparing to create a new periodical called Ladies Magazine. After reading Hale’s novel, Blake asked her to become the magazine’s editor. Thus, Sarah Josepha Hale became the first female editor of a magazine in the United States.
Aggressive Promoter
Hale used her editorial position to aggressively promote American writers. At the time, most American magazines published the works of British writers. Under her influence, Ladies Magazine changed its name to American Ladies Magazine, reflecting Hale’s editorial approach. Many of the male authors published by Hale are now regarded as mainstays of American literature: Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson among them. Hale also promoted and published female writers including Lydia H. Sigourney, Lydia Maria Child, Catherine Sedgwick and Alice B. Neal.
Eventually, American Ladies Magazine was purchased by Louis Godey, the Philadelphia publisher of Godey’s Lady Book magazine. Godey merged the two magazines, retaining Hale as editor. This highly successful partnership turned Godey’s Lady Book into one of the most successful and influential magazines of the era. At its peak of popularity, Godey’s Lady Book had more than 150,000 subscribers, giving Hale enormous influence. Readers took her editorials seriously.
About this time, Hale committed herself to promoting the establishment of a national day of thanksgiving. She waged a one-woman campaign, writing hundreds of letters to governors, ministers, newspaper editors, and every U.S. president during those years. Her request was always the same: “That the last Thursday in November be set aside to offer to God our tribute of joy and gratitude for the blessings of the year.” In an editorial she asked readers to “consecrate the day to benevolence of action, by sending good gifts to the poor, and doing those deeds of charity that will, for one day, make every American home the place of plenty and of rejoicing . . . Let the people of all The States and Territories sit down together to the ‘feast of fat things,’ and drink in the sweet draught of joy and gratitude to the Divine Giver of all our blessings, the pledge of renewed love to the Union, and to each other; and of peace and goodwill to all men.”
War Provides an Opening
It was the American Civil War’s Battle of Gettysburg, waged in July of 1863, that provided increased impetus for Hale’s vision. By 1863 the country had become bitterly divided. The death toll from the Civil War was staggering. Though it is estimated that as many as 50,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died at Gettysburg, the battle was a vital victory for the North. Following the battle, there was a general feeling of relief, and a belief that Lincoln and the North would prevail.
That September, Hale wrote another editorial calling for a national day of thanksgiving. Her editorial was widely circulated, generating tremendous support. Hale wrote to President Lincoln urging him to establish the national day of thanksgiving. “You have observed,” she wrote to the president, “that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs national recognition and authoritative fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”
On October 3, 1863 President Lincoln issued a proclamation setting the last Thursday of November as National Thanksgiving Day. To set an example, Lincoln ordered all government departments in Washington closed on that day.
President’s Proclamation
Lincoln’s proclamation read, in part, “The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come . . . 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.” Since that time, Americans have celebrated Thanksgiving, almost always, on the last Thursday of November.
There was one controversial attempt to alter the tradition, and that took place in 1939 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Pressured by the country’s major merchants, who wanted an increase in the number of shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day back one week to the third Thursday in November.
While this pleased retailers, the public was outraged. Protesters filled the streets of cities and towns across the country. Defying the presidential proclamation, millions of Americans continued to celebrate Thanksgiving Day on the last Thursday of November, even taking the day off from work. The following year protests were more vigorous and widespread. President Roosevelt got the message and, in the spring of 1941, acknowledged the will of the people and returned the holiday to the last Thursday in November.
Retailers responded by offering sales and discounts the day after Thanksgiving, thereby beginning the annual practice of promoting the Christmas buying season on the Friday following Thanksgiving Day.
Promoting Women’s Causes
Once Thanksgiving was firmly fixed on the American calendar, Sarah Josepha Hale turned more of her efforts toward women’s rights, though she did not support female suffragists of the day. Hale felt strongly that women should not be involved in politics. Yet, she was adamant that women be granted the same educational opportunities as men. She supported the founding of Emma Willard’s School in Troy, New York, a university prep school for young women. Hale also persuaded her friend, Matthew Vassar, to hire a female administrator and many female instructors for his newly created college, Vassar College.
In Boston, she founded the Seaman’s Society, an organization that helped feed, house, and provide job skills to destitute women. Hale promoted the right of women to enter the medical profession, and her support aided Elizabeth Blackwell in becoming America’s first female medical doctor.
Hale continued editing Godey’s Lady Book until 1877, by which time she had reached the age of 90. Her final words to readers appeared in the December 1877 issue: “And now, having reached my ninetieth year, I must bid farewell to my countrywomen, with the hope that this work of half a century may be blessed to the furtherance of their happiness and usefulness in their divinely-appointed sphere. New avenues for higher culture and for good works are opening before them, which fifty years ago were unknown. That they may improve these opportunities, and be faithful to their higher vocation, is my heartfelt prayer.”