Author: Hale, Sarah Josepha
Biography:
Hale, Sarah Josepha, formerly Buell (1788-1879: WBIS)
The daughter of Gordon and Martha (Whittlesey) Buell, she was born at the family farm in Newport NH and educated mainly by her mother. A brother gave her instruction in philosophy and Latin, and she then taught school for a few years before her marriage to a Newport lawyer, David Hale, in 1813. In 1822 she was left a widow with five children and turned to writing for a living. On the strength of her successful novel, Northwood (1827), she was invited to Boston to be the editor of a new magazine for women, the Ladies' Magazine, in which she spoke up against slavery and in favour of women's education (though not of female suffrage). Ten years later, when it was bought out by Louis Godey, she became the editor of Godey's Lady's Book--a role that took her to Philadelphia and made her an influential leader and advocate for women for another forty years. She also edited many anthologies and biographies: her amazing compendium of feminist history, Woman's Record (1855), is dedicated "to the Men of America; who show, in their laws and customs, respecting Women, ideas more just and feelings more noble than were ever evinced by men of any other nation." (DAB; ANBO 19 Feb. 2019)
Other Names:
- Mrs. Sarah J. Hale
- Mrs. Sarah J. Hale