Sarah Josepha Hale, an American editor and author, born in Newport, N.H. Her husband dying in 1822 leaving her with five small children, she supported her family by literary work.

She was editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book for forty years, and produced a number of popular works during her long and useful life.

Her efforts in behalf of the Bunker Hill Monument Fund, her interest  in seamen, in foreign missions, and in the higher education of women, were untiring and successful.

For many years she advocated the keeping of Thanksgiving Day as a national festival, as it was observed since 1864, when President Lincoln adopted her suggestion.

But the crowning work and most endearing publication of Sarah Hale is her: Woman’s Record, or Sketches of All Distinguished Women (New York, 1853), a splendid monument to the achievements of women through the ages.

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Reference: Famous Women; An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women By Joseph Adelman. Copyright, 1926 by Ellis M. Lonow Company.