Newport native and historical figure Hale remembered in dramatic tribute

By GLYNIS HART
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SALEM – Newport native Sarah Hale, born in 1788, editor of “Godey’s Lady’s Book” for 40 years, was the subject of a tribute presented in Salem on Tuesday by Sharon Wood. Wood, a retired librarian and educator, created “A Tribute to Sarah Josepha Hale” in which a contemporary of Hale’s tells stories about her life and achievements.

Hale taught school in the Newport area, where her father ran a tavern, The Rising Sun. According to the Newport Historical Society, Hale operated a private school for both boys and girls on Whipple Road. The school building is now a private residence. 

Hale’s book “Northwood: Life North and South,” published in 1827, was one of the first American novels written by a woman and one of the first to write about slavery. Hale’s children’s poem, “Mary’s Lamb” is still widely known as a nursery rhyme. 

She became the nation’s first female editor, beginning with the “Ladies’ Magazine,” which was later bought by, and merged with “Godey’s Lady’s Book.” The influential Godey’s has been described as a combination of Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart, preceding them by over a hundred years. Hale published works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Washington Irving, as well as important women writers of the day (Lydia Sigourney, Caroline Lee Hentz, Frances Sargent Osgood) and Godey’s was a manual of style not only for dressmaking and home decoration, but also homebuilding. 

Hale advocated for women’s education and was involved in the founding of Vassar College. She used her position as editor to create a public forum to discuss women’s attempts to enter the workforce, and she published the works of Emma Willard and other advocates of education for women. She made the magazine one of a few that focused on publishing American writers, rather than reprinting material from British magazines. According to Wikipedia, “In practical terms, this meant that she sometimes personally wrote half of the material published in the ‘Ladies’ Magazine.’” 

Hale adamantly opposed slavery, believing that liberated slaves should be repatriated to Liberia. She used her pages to shape a common American culture and promote the Union, for instance publishing stories in which Southerners and Northerners fell in love, or fought together against the British.

She is also considered the main reason Thanksgiving is now a national holiday. Hale wrote letters to five presidents advocating for the holiday, which was unknown outside New England until President Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving to heal the the nation after the Civil War. 

In “A Tribute to Sarah Josepha Hale,” presented at the Salem Historical Society, Sharon Wood portrays Ann Wyman Blake, a resident of West Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1866, speaking of her admiration for Hale. As Blake, Wood tells of Hale’s many accomplishments during her life in Boston, where she moved to take the job of editor. Hale retired after 40 years, nearly 90 at the time, and passed away at the age of 91 in 1879.