Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Since the US holiday of Thanksgiving is coming
Speaker 1: up today, we are sharing our episode on Sarah Jessefa Hale,
Speaker 1: who was one of the people who really drove the
Speaker 1: effort to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. At the time,
Speaker 1: the holiday was not associated with a fictionalized or romanticized
Speaker 1: story about a first Thanksgiving celebration supposedly bringing together Indigenous
Speaker 1: people and colonists, but Hale was hoping a national holiday
Speaker 1: for giving thanks would help keep the nation together as
Speaker 1: it became increasingly divided over the issue of slavery. This
Speaker 1: originally came out on August twenty eighth, twenty nineteen, So
Speaker 1: enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and Welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Lately, I've been
Speaker 1: thinking a lot about etiquette on the Internet and how
Speaker 1: sometimes there's sort of not any and how etiquette isn't
Speaker 1: something that just springs forth from people unprompted. The idea
Speaker 1: of what is and isn't polite or rude has to
Speaker 1: be kind of cultivated and created and reinforced intentionally, including
Speaker 1: through things like etiquette manuals and advice columns and magazines,
Speaker 1: and that whole line of thought led me to something
Speaker 1: that has been on my list for a long time
Speaker 1: and has also been requested by a lot of our listeners.
Speaker 1: That's Gotie's Lady's Book, and it's editor, Sarah Josepha Hale.
Speaker 1: I will say that I have heard historians and archivists
Speaker 1: say this as Goati's and as goddies. I have also
Speaker 1: on occasion heard good Days. I think that's just people
Speaker 1: trying to make us sound fancy. That does sound like
Speaker 1: an attempt for fanciness. Yeah, A bunch of folks that
Speaker 1: I have listened to from Vassar who she was associated with,
Speaker 1: all said goaties. So that's the one that we're going
Speaker 1: to go with. This was the most popular magazine in
Speaker 1: the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: and although it's mostly well known at this point for
Speaker 1: its hands tinted fashion plates, the content of the magazine
Speaker 1: was this collection of all kinds of material, including poetry
Speaker 1: and fiction and household tips and music and yes, etiquette,
Speaker 1: and it was incredibly influential in terms of both the
Speaker 1: actual magazine content and Hale's work outside of his pages
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways that are still felt today.
Speaker 1: In Europe. The first magazines were launched in the seventeenth century,
Speaker 1: thanks to advances in printing technology and mail distribution, as
Speaker 1: well as increased literacy rates. The word magazine is much
Speaker 1: older than that, but it was first used to describe
Speaker 1: a periodical filled with works by various writers, often on
Speaker 1: a range of subjects, aimed at a general audience, and
Speaker 1: that was in seventeen thirty one. That was when Edward
Speaker 1: Cave started publishing The Gentleman's Magazine. He called it a
Speaker 1: magazine because of the word's earlier meaning of storehouse. The
Speaker 1: Gentleman's Magazine was meant to be a storehouse of knowledge.
Speaker 1: Magazines aimed specifically at women were part of this whole
Speaker 1: ecosystem by seventeen fifty nine, that's when the Royal Female
Speaker 1: Magazine or the Ladies General Repository of Pleasure and Improvement
Speaker 1: was first published. In England and the United States, the
Speaker 1: first women's magazine was called Ladies Magazine and it was
Speaker 1: founded in seventeen ninety two. Various women's magazines came and
Speaker 1: went on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US,
Speaker 1: most of them folded within a year or two until
Speaker 1: Sarah Josepha Hale started publishing Her Lady's Magazine, which was
Speaker 1: the first women's magazine in the US that lasted more
Speaker 1: than five years. That is, in fact, a different ladies
Speaker 1: magazine than the one that was founded in seventeen ninety two.
Speaker 1: And we're going to go back up for a minute
Speaker 1: and talk about how Hale got there. She was born
Speaker 1: Sarah Josepha Buell in Newport, New Hampshire, on October twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty eight. Her parents were Captain Gordon Buell and
Speaker 1: Martha Whittlesey Yule, and her father had fought in the
Speaker 1: Revolutionary War. Sarah was the third of their four children.
Speaker 1: Sarah's parents thought that girls should have access to education,
Speaker 1: and for the Buell daughters that meant being tutored at
Speaker 1: home by their mother along with their brothers. It did not, however,
Speaker 1: mean that Sarah could go to college. Of all her siblings,
Speaker 1: Sarah was closest to her brother Horatio, and when he
Speaker 1: went to Dartmouth, he actively encouraged her self study and
Speaker 1: he shared his books with her when he was home.
Speaker 1: In her words quote, he seemed very unwilling that I
Speaker 1: should be deprived of all his collegiate advantages. Sarah became
Speaker 1: a teacher when she was eighteen, and in eighteen thirteen,
Speaker 1: when she was twenty five, she married David Hale, who
Speaker 1: was a lawyer. David encouraged her to continue educating herself again.
Speaker 1: In her words quote, we commenced soon after our marriage
Speaker 1: a system of study and reading, which we pursued while
Speaker 1: he lived. The hours allowed were from eight o'clock in
Speaker 1: the evening till ten two hours in the twenty four
Speaker 1: How I enjoyed those hours in all our mental pursuits.
Speaker 1: It seemed the aim of my husband to enlighten my reason,
Speaker 1: strengthen my judgment, and give me confidence in my own
Speaker 1: powers of mind, which he estimated much higher than I.
Speaker 1: But this approbation which he bestowed on my talents has
Speaker 1: been of great encouragement to me and attempting the duties
Speaker 1: that have since become my portion. Sadly, David did not
Speaker 1: live long. He died of pneumonia in eighteen twenty two,
Speaker 1: nine years into their marriage. By then they had four
Speaker 1: children together. They were David, Horatio, Frances Anne, and Sarah Josepha.
Speaker 1: The elder Sarah was pregnant with their fifth child, William,
Speaker 1: who was born not long after his father's death. Sarah
Speaker 1: was understandably devastated, and she wore black for the rest
Speaker 1: of her life, although this was also influenced by the
Speaker 1: fact that she found black flattering on her and she
Speaker 1: also thought it made her look taller. Sarah knew that
Speaker 1: she was going to have to work to support her family,
Speaker 1: but that a teacher's salary was never going to be
Speaker 1: enough to support her in five children. Before her marriage,
Speaker 1: she hadn't even been supporting herself on teacher's page. She'd
Speaker 1: been living at home and using that salary to help
Speaker 1: cover her father's medical expenses. David had been a Freemason, though,
Speaker 1: and his brothers at the Masonic Lodge helped get Sarah
Speaker 1: and her sister in law, Hannah established with a millinery
Speaker 1: business that, along with dressmaking, was one of the very
Speaker 1: few business opportunities that was considered appropriate for middle class women.
Speaker 1: The Masonic Lodge also funded the publication of a book
Speaker 1: of poetry that Sarah had written that was called The
Speaker 1: Genius of Oblivion and Other Original Poems, and it was
Speaker 1: published under the byline A Lady of New Hampshire. Sarah
Speaker 1: earned enough money from this book that she was able
Speaker 1: to leave Hannah in charge of what actually seems to
Speaker 1: have become quite a thriving millinery business, and instead Sarah
Speaker 1: focused on writing. Sarah submitted poems and stories to magazines
Speaker 1: and journals, and in eighteen twenty seven she published a
Speaker 1: novel called Northwood, A Tale of New England. Northwood contrasted
Speaker 1: a woman's life in New England to what she imagined
Speaker 1: to be a woman's life in the South. At this point,
Speaker 1: Hale was really concerned that the issue of slavery was
Speaker 1: going to lead to a civil war or otherwise just
Speaker 1: destroy the country, and Northwood reflects these fears, as well
Speaker 1: as the era's prevailing racism and Hale's own biases. The
Speaker 1: book condemned the institution of slavery and the idea of
Speaker 1: a widening divide between the North and the South, while
Speaker 1: also treating white women of both the North and the
Speaker 1: South with a lot of sympathy. Northwood was very well received,
Speaker 1: and it caught the eye of the Reverend John Loris Blake,
Speaker 1: who approached Hale about starting a magazine for women. This
Speaker 1: was not an easy decision for her, if the magazine
Speaker 1: was successful, she would probably make enough money to send
Speaker 1: all five of her children to college. But taking the
Speaker 1: job was also going to mean leaving her older children
Speaker 1: with relatives while she moved to Boston to work. Her
Speaker 1: oldest child, David, was thirteen at this point and was
Speaker 1: getting ready to head to West Point, but the rest
Speaker 1: of her children were years away from leaving home, and
Speaker 1: her youngest child was only five. In the end, Hale
Speaker 1: did take this job. She spent a few months at
Speaker 1: home in New Hampshire preparing and planning out the magazine's
Speaker 1: first issues, before sending her middle three children to live
Speaker 1: with various aunts and uncles. She took William with her
Speaker 1: when she left for Boston in the spring of eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty eight. And we'll talk about that magazine after we
Speaker 1: first paused for a little sponsor break. The magazine that
Speaker 1: Sarah Joseppa Hale launched in eighteen twenty eight was initially
Speaker 1: known as Ladies Magazine and Literary Gazette. It's believed to
Speaker 1: be the first magazine edited by a woman. After a while,
Speaker 1: its name was shortened to just Ladies Magazine and then
Speaker 1: expanded to American Ladies Magazine. This was supposed to distinguish
Speaker 1: it from a different ladies magazine that was being public
Speaker 1: in Britain, and also to highlight what Hale saw as
Speaker 1: the magazine's American focus. At the time, most magazines being
Speaker 1: published in the United States were being created primarily through
Speaker 1: a practice called clipping that was just republishing material from
Speaker 1: other magazines without any kind of acknowledgment or attribution or
Speaker 1: payment to its original creators. Most of the time, the
Speaker 1: clipped content in the US was coming from British publications,
Speaker 1: and we have talked a little bit about the publications
Speaker 1: that worked in that style when we have talked about
Speaker 1: Poe's era and his rivals, and also also other people
Speaker 1: that worked in literary efforts, etc. It came up, I
Speaker 1: think in Our windsor Mackay episodes possibly, But Hale bless
Speaker 1: her did not approve of this practice of clipping, and
Speaker 1: she wanted this to be an American magazine by and
Speaker 1: for American women, meaning middle and upper class white women.
Speaker 1: She did the vast majority of the original writing herself.
Speaker 1: In the magazine's pages included poetry, fiction essays, news articles,
Speaker 1: household tips, and editorials where she advocated things like property
Speaker 1: rights for married women. Some things that Hale did not
Speaker 1: want this magazine to include were fashion plates. These were
Speaker 1: illustrations of people in fashionable clothing and appealing surroundings, usually
Speaker 1: done as etchings or engravings. She really wanted her magazine
Speaker 1: to be dedicated to the education and enrichment of women,
Speaker 1: and that did not, in her mind, include fashion. In
Speaker 1: her words, quote, there is no part of our duty
Speaker 1: as editor of a lady's journal which we feel so
Speaker 1: reluctant to perform as to quote or exhibit the fashions
Speaker 1: of dress. This is where I retract my blessing upon her.
Speaker 1: But fashion plates were incredibly popular, and Hale started losing
Speaker 1: subscribers as competing magazines started publishing more of them. By
Speaker 1: late eighteen thirty, Hale realized that she really did have
Speaker 1: to include fashion plates if she wanted her magazine to
Speaker 1: stay afloat. So the first few issues that included fashion
Speaker 1: plates bemoaned the lack of original American fashions to feature,
Speaker 1: or offered commentary that criticized fashion, or printed an essay
Speaker 1: on the facing page that used the plate as some
Speaker 1: kind of moral lesson. Eventually, though, Hale moved on to
Speaker 1: publishing plates without all of the Judgy commentary, and she
Speaker 1: was sort of like, if I have to do this,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna be as foot draggy and complaining about
Speaker 1: it as I can now. Irony is though she wore
Speaker 1: black her whole life because she thought it made her
Speaker 1: look stunning, So she was into fashion, she just wouldn't
Speaker 1: acknowledge it. Yeah, and also this magazine, and then also
Speaker 1: Godey's Ladies Book, which you're going to talk about more
Speaker 1: in a bit. I mean, they became incredibly famous for
Speaker 1: all these fashion plates. So Ladies Magazine stopped publishing fashion
Speaker 1: plates toward the very end of its run, but it's
Speaker 1: not clear whether that contributed to the magazines to line.
Speaker 1: By eighteen thirty four, the magazine had started to struggle,
Speaker 1: in part due to the financial fallout from President Andrew
Speaker 1: Jackson's efforts to try to dismantle the Bank of the
Speaker 1: United States. Hale started appealing to her subscribers to try
Speaker 1: to support the magazine and for the ones whose subscriptions
Speaker 1: were in arrears to pay their bills. So during these
Speaker 1: lean years, a man named Lewis and Tuan Goady approached
Speaker 1: Hale about moving to Philadelphia to edit his magazine. His
Speaker 1: name does appear French, but he was born in the
Speaker 1: US who were going with the Lewis pronunciation. Gody was
Speaker 1: born in New York, as I said in the US,
Speaker 1: on June sixth, eighteen oh four, and like Hale, most
Speaker 1: of his education had come through self study. He had
Speaker 1: owned a small bookstore and newsstand for a while before
Speaker 1: he became a scissors editor at the Philadelphia Daily Chronicle.
Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty, he started publishing a magazine called Ladies Book,
Speaker 1: which was like so many other magazines created through clipping,
Speaker 1: and it also included fashion plates. But Gody also didn't
Speaker 1: want this magazine to just be years standard clipping shop.
Speaker 1: He wanted it to be, in his words quote, the
Speaker 1: guiding star of female education, the beacon light of refined taste,
Speaker 1: pure morals, and practical wisdom. And he hoped that if
Speaker 1: he hired Hale, she could take it in that direction.
Speaker 1: In spite of her own magazine struggles, Hale actually turned
Speaker 1: him down. This was largely because she didn't want to
Speaker 1: leave Boston. Her son, William was about to start college
Speaker 1: at Harvard and she didn't want to leave until he graduated.
Speaker 1: And she also wasn't quite ready to give up her
Speaker 1: own magazine. At this point, she was its co owner.
Speaker 1: Hale had been very busy during her whole tenure as
Speaker 1: editor of American Ladies Magazine. She had written numerous books
Speaker 1: on top of all the writing she was doing for
Speaker 1: the magazine. This included publishing poems for our children, including
Speaker 1: Mary Had a Little Lamb, which was published in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty Its poems were quote written to inculcate moral truths
Speaker 1: and virtuous sentiments. She was also hugely active in fundraising
Speaker 1: efforts for the complete of the Bunker Hill Monument, and
Speaker 1: she helped found the Seamen's Aid Society and become its
Speaker 1: first president. She kept up this pace as her magazine struggled,
Speaker 1: but she really was not able to turn things around.
Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty six, Goady made another proposal that he
Speaker 1: could buy American Ladies Magazine, merge it with his Lady's Book,
Speaker 1: and let Hale edit the combined magazine from Boston until
Speaker 1: her son, William graduated from college in eighteen forty one.
Speaker 1: This time Hale agreed. As of its first issue in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty seven, she was the editor of Goady's Lady's Book,
Speaker 1: and she took it in a similar direction as she
Speaker 1: had taken American Lady's Magazine, which is what Gody had
Speaker 1: been hoping for, moving it away from clipping toward original content.
Speaker 1: Hale also focused on hiring women for as many roles
Speaker 1: as she could. Eventually this included a staff of one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty women to hand color the fashion plates.
Speaker 1: That means hand coloring them for every copy of the magazine,
Speaker 1: which was a feat and also meant that sometimes different
Speaker 1: people's copies would be in different colors because they ran
Speaker 1: out of one. Obviously, that's one of the things we
Speaker 1: said before that this magazine became really famous for. Also,
Speaker 1: in keeping with her distaste for covering fashion in a
Speaker 1: lady's magazine at all, fashion was the only section of
Speaker 1: Gody's Lady's Book that Hale did not personally oversee. There
Speaker 1: was a lot in the magazine beyond the fashion plates
Speaker 1: and other fashion coverage. Hale still wanted to quote provide
Speaker 1: quality material to benefit and educate the female reader, So,
Speaker 1: like her earlier magazine, Godey's Lady's Book began publishing poetry,
Speaker 1: fiction essays, biographical vignettes, news advice, and household tips. She
Speaker 1: introduced stories and articles for children meant to be read
Speaker 1: to them by their mothers. Each issue included sheet music,
Speaker 1: and there were also sewing and embroidery patterns, also recipes,
Speaker 1: anything that Hale thought would be educational, edifying, and useful
Speaker 1: for American Ladies. This meant that Godey's This Lady's Book
Speaker 1: also became a publishing outlet for some of the United
Speaker 1: States leading writers at the time. The magazine published work
Speaker 1: by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth,
Speaker 1: Longfellow in Washington, Irving Edgar Allan Poe was a contributor
Speaker 1: as well, publishing stories and poems, including The Cask of Amontiado.
Speaker 1: Under the leadership of Hale as editor and godi A's publisher,
Speaker 1: Godey's Lady's Book became incredibly successful. We mentioned earlier that
Speaker 1: Hale's American Ladies Magazine was the first women's magazine in
Speaker 1: the US to last more than five years. Gody's Lady's
Speaker 1: Book lasted for almost seventy from eighteen thirty to eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight. It outlived both its editor and its publisher.
Speaker 1: It also became hugely popular. It had about ten thousand
Speaker 1: subscribers when Hale came on as editor. At its peak
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty, it had about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand subscribers, which was the largest circulation of any magazine
Speaker 1: in the u United States at all. This was in
Speaker 1: spite of an annual subscription cost of three dollars, which
Speaker 1: was considered expensive for the time. It's always tricky to
Speaker 1: make these comparisons, but this is usually cited as between
Speaker 1: eighty five and ninety dollars a year today. It's also
Speaker 1: tricky to compare that to current magazine subscription rates because
Speaker 1: there are so many bundles and deals and digital only
Speaker 1: subscriptions and whatnot. But the current bundle subscription rate for
Speaker 1: Vogue is twenty one dollars and ninety nine cents a year,
Speaker 1: and the cover price for a year of Martha Stewart
Speaker 1: Living is forty nine dollars and ninety cents. That is
Speaker 1: according to each of their websites. It was also read
Speaker 1: well beyond its subscriber base. Its intended audience was ladies.
Speaker 1: In the mindset of the time, that meant white Protestant
Speaker 1: women who were mostly middle class or more affluent, but
Speaker 1: it was also read beyond that demographic, with women pooling
Speaker 1: their money to share a subscription, or boarding houses sharing
Speaker 1: one copy among all its residents, or patrons reading copies
Speaker 1: and libraries in reasa rooms. So today Godey's Lady's Book
Speaker 1: is a huge source of information about middle class white
Speaker 1: women in the nineteenth century, and it and Hale were
Speaker 1: also enormously influential, which we'll get to in a moment
Speaker 1: after a quick sponsor break. Like we've said a couple
Speaker 1: of times at this point, Sarah Josepha Hale and Godey's
Speaker 1: Lady's Book were enormously influential. Under her leadership, the magazine
Speaker 1: reinforced several traditions that are a big part of life
Speaker 1: for many Americans today. Things like Christmas trees and white
Speaker 1: wedding dresses, which were being popularized in Britain thanks to
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria, were popularized in the United States thanks in
Speaker 1: part to Gody's Lady's Book. The first picture of a
Speaker 1: Christmas tree in the magazine's pages actually was copied from
Speaker 1: an engraving that had run in the Illustrated London News.
Speaker 1: That engraving depicted Queen Victoria and her family around a
Speaker 1: Christmas tree. The Goady's version took out the Queen's crown
Speaker 1: and Albert's sash and mustache, and some German biscuits from
Speaker 1: under the tree. Otherwise, though it was the same picture
Speaker 1: supposed to be an American family. The biggest and most
Speaker 1: obvious example of Hale's influence in this regard is the
Speaker 1: American Thanksgiving holiday. In the United States, Thanksgiving was already
Speaker 1: celebrated in various parts of the country, especially in the Northeast.
Speaker 1: Before she became an editor. Hale started publicly advocating for
Speaker 1: a Thanksgiving holiday to be celebrated nationwide, and she began
Speaker 1: that quest in eighteen thirty seven. It was something that
Speaker 1: went on within and outside the pages of Godey's Ladies Book,
Speaker 1: but her interest in Thanksgiving as a holiday went back
Speaker 1: before that. She had written a lot about Thanksgiving before
Speaker 1: Godey's Lady's Book was even founded. There's a whole stretch
Speaker 1: in her first novel, Northwood, that's focused on Thanksgiving, including
Speaker 1: a New England family explaining to a visitor from elsewhere
Speaker 1: that it's not celebrated in the whole country, but hopefully
Speaker 1: one day will be with one character saying, quote, Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: like the fourth of July, should be considered a national
Speaker 1: festival and observed by all our people. The Thanksgiving meal
Speaker 1: is described in her writing this way quote the roasted
Speaker 1: turkey took precedence on this occasion, being placed at the
Speaker 1: head of the table, and well did it become its
Speaker 1: lordly station, sending forth a rich odor of its savory stuffing,
Speaker 1: and finally covered with the froth of the basting. At
Speaker 1: the foot of the board, a surloin of beef, flanked
Speaker 1: on either side by a leg of pork and loin
Speaker 1: of mutton, seemed placed as a bastion to defend innumerable
Speaker 1: bowls of gravy and plates of vegetables disposed in that quarter.
Speaker 1: A goose and pair of ducklings occupied side stations on
Speaker 1: the table, the middle being graced, as it always is
Speaker 1: on such occasions, by that rich burgomaster of the provisions,
Speaker 1: called a chicken pie. This pie, which is wholly formed
Speaker 1: of the choicest parts of fowls, enriched and seasoned with
Speaker 1: a profusion of butter and pepper, and covered with an
Speaker 1: excellent puff paste, is like the celebrated pumpkin pie, an
Speaker 1: indispensable part of a good and true Yankee Thanksgiving, the
Speaker 1: size of the pie, usually denoting the gratitude of the
Speaker 1: party who prepares the feast, and then it goes on
Speaker 1: to describe sideboards laden with a whole other course, plus
Speaker 1: a collection of desserts, including pumpkin pie. I have made
Speaker 1: some Thanksgiving meals, and thank goodness, I did not have
Speaker 1: to make all of those different fowls. This is simultaneously
Speaker 1: familiar sounding to a lot of people in terms of
Speaker 1: the turkey and the pie and the vast quantity of food,
Speaker 1: but it also seems even bigger than like the over
Speaker 1: the top Thanksgivings that a lot of people have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: by the time we got to Mutton, I was like,
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? This was also depicting a meal
Speaker 1: that was going to be for a whole lot of people,
Speaker 1: but still it's a lot. There are other references to
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and Hale's work after that, and then in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven she wrote an editorial in Gody's Lady's Book
Speaker 1: that advocated a Thanksgiving holiday to be celebrated in every
Speaker 1: state on the last Thursday of November. She started contacting
Speaker 1: state governments with this proposal, along with contacting a series
Speaker 1: of US presidents continuing on until President Abraham Lincoln gave
Speaker 1: his Thanksgiving Proclamation in eighteen sixty three. That proclamation said,
Speaker 1: in part quote, it has seemed to me fit and
Speaker 1: proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged,
Speaker 1: as with one heart and one voice, by the whole
Speaker 1: American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in
Speaker 1: every part of the United States, and also those who
Speaker 1: are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands,
Speaker 1: to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November
Speaker 1: next as a day of Thanksgiving and prayer to our
Speaker 1: beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. At this point,
Speaker 1: the Thanksgiving holiday wasn't really associated with a romanticized first
Speaker 1: dinner involving the Pilgrims and the Wampanog. That association didn't
Speaker 1: really evolve until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
Speaker 1: so a few decades after Lincoln issued his proclamation, and
Speaker 1: it was decades after that before Thanksgiving officially became a
Speaker 1: national holiday. That romanticized first Thanksgiving story was reinforced in
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century through school lessons connecting it to
Speaker 1: ideas like freedom and good citizenship and construction paper pilgrim
Speaker 1: hats in my case, yeah and problematic Yeah, comped headdresses, yes,
Speaker 1: quotation marks. So today, the first Thanksgiving story, and consequently
Speaker 1: the holiday as a whole, has been really criticized for
Speaker 1: erasing centuries of exploitation and genocide of North America's native
Speaker 1: peoples at the hands of colonists in the government. But
Speaker 1: even without that connection to that romanticized story, Hale's Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: campaign has its own problems. One of the reasons she
Speaker 1: was so dedicated to a nowtional Thanksgiving holiday goes back
Speaker 1: to her thought that slavery might tear the nation apart.
Speaker 1: So she thought a national Thanksgiving holiday might help unify
Speaker 1: the nation in the face of its division over the
Speaker 1: issue of slavery. So, in other words, she thought this
Speaker 1: holiday might help keep the country together without actually addressing
Speaker 1: the underlying issue of slavery. I have so many thoughts
Speaker 1: that I'm just going to keep in my head. Hale
Speaker 1: thought slavery was wrong, but she also didn't agree with
Speaker 1: radical opposition to it. She advocated the resettlement of enslaved
Speaker 1: Africans in Liberia where they would be free, rather than
Speaker 1: the abolition of slavery within the United States. This resettlement plan,
Speaker 1: we have talked about it on some episodes before, had
Speaker 1: a lot of advocates arguing from all kinds of perspectives,
Speaker 1: including people of African descent who thought that this was
Speaker 1: the only way that they might truly be free, and
Speaker 1: people who were simply racist and wanted the enslaved population removed.
Speaker 1: For more detail, you can check out our previous episode
Speaker 1: on Marcus Garvey and Thomas Morris Chester. So this same
Speaker 1: mindset also influenced the editorial direction of Godey's Lady's Book.
Speaker 1: When Hale was editing American Lady's Magazine, she'd written various
Speaker 1: editorials that clearly stated her political opinions, but Gody wanted
Speaker 1: the Ladies Book to appeal to women regardless of what
Speaker 1: their political views were. And of course this wasn't a
Speaker 1: distinction he was consciously making in his mind, but the
Speaker 1: default woman here was white and usually middle class. He
Speaker 1: was also interested in quote avoiding nationalism or any political
Speaker 1: entanglements within the pages of the journal, and he also said,
Speaker 1: quote I allow no man's religion to be attacked or
Speaker 1: sneered at, or the subject of politics to be mentioned
Speaker 1: in my magazine. So sometimes you'll see Godey's Lady's Book
Speaker 1: described as not being political, But it would be more
Speaker 1: accurate to say that the magazine avoided overt political controversy.
Speaker 1: Really it was incredibly political. It avoided direct discussion of
Speaker 1: the Civil War or the movement for abolition. That's an
Speaker 1: inherently political decision. Instead, in the years leading up to
Speaker 1: the US Civil War, it published poetry, essays, and stories
Speaker 1: that highlighted the potential tragedies of war and also emphasized
Speaker 1: the idea of national unity. Although the hope was that
Speaker 1: this would avoid offending either side, in reality it meant
Speaker 1: that the magazine's readership peaked in eighteen sixty just before
Speaker 1: the war. Afterward, people started gravitating toward publications where they
Speaker 1: could get news about what was happening. On top of that,
Speaker 1: in a different political direction, Godie's Lady's Book heavily reinforced
Speaker 1: a very specific idea of what a woman should be.
Speaker 1: Sarah Josepha Hale believed that women were more moral and
Speaker 1: compassionate than men were, and Hale's words quote God has
Speaker 1: given to man authority to woman influence. She wanted women
Speaker 1: to influence men to be better so that men could
Speaker 1: put their authority to better use. The magazine focused on
Speaker 1: the idea that a woman's role given by God was
Speaker 1: to be a moral force in her sphere of influence,
Speaker 1: which was the home. Although the magazine never took a
Speaker 1: clear position one way or the other, Hale herself was
Speaker 1: against the idea of women's suffrage because it was outside
Speaker 1: of women's sphere of influence, and because women had fewer
Speaker 1: opportunities for education and political engagement, thus they were less
Speaker 1: likely to be informed voters. Instead, Godi's Lady's Book really
Speaker 1: enforced the idea that a true woman was pious, pure, submissive,
Speaker 1: and domestic, a collection of ideas known as the cult
Speaker 1: of true womanhood or the cult of domesticity. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: come up in a few episodes lately, including Packard versus Packard.
Speaker 1: It was an incredibly common idea of what a woman
Speaker 1: was supposed to be at the time, and elements of
Speaker 1: it continue to today. Hale did advocate for better opportunities
Speaker 1: for women, but only within this framework. This included supporting
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Blackwell and hers to become the first woman in
Speaker 1: the United States to earn an MD. In Hale's mind,
Speaker 1: medicine could be within a woman's sphere. In her words
Speaker 1: written in March of eighteen fifty two, quote, the study
Speaker 1: of medicine belongs to a woman's department of knowledge. Its
Speaker 1: practice is in harmony with the duties of mother and nurse,
Speaker 1: which she must fulfill. It is not going out of
Speaker 1: her sphere to prescribe for the sick. She must do
Speaker 1: this by the fireside, the bedside, in the inner chamber,
Speaker 1: where her true place is. It is man who is
Speaker 1: there out of his sphere. Hale also advocated for women
Speaker 1: to have better educational opportunities, especially when it came to
Speaker 1: an education in the liberal arts. She was a huge
Speaker 1: advocate for Vasser Female College after its founding in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty one, as well as corresponding extensively with its founder,
Speaker 1: Matthew Vasser on everything from the student's dress to the
Speaker 1: number of female faculty to whether to keep the word
Speaker 1: female in the name. But there were also a lot
Speaker 1: of limits to Hale's advocacy for women's education, all connecting
Speaker 1: back to the idea of what a woman's sphere was.
Speaker 1: For example, she didn't seem to think that women should
Speaker 1: study the physical sciences for their own sake. Various articles
Speaker 1: in Godie's Lady's Books suggest that science has a use
Speaker 1: in a woman's life, like how understanding scientific concepts can
Speaker 1: help her keep a better home. But it doesn't really
Speaker 1: support the idea that a woman should just become a
Speaker 1: chemist or a physicist because she wants to. And there
Speaker 1: were also limits to which women she was writing for
Speaker 1: and depicting in the magazine. The women in the magazine's
Speaker 1: famous fashion plates, some of which were large enough that
Speaker 1: they were printed on fold out pages, were all white
Speaker 1: and all affluent, with similarly attractive features and the same
Speaker 1: slender body type. They reinforced the ideas of heterosexual marriage
Speaker 1: and motherhood as unifying forces in women's lives. Really, for
Speaker 1: most of its existence, the magazine didn't address the experience
Speaker 1: of native people, or enslaved people, or free black people
Speaker 1: or immigrants at all. In the words of a piece
Speaker 1: in the July eighteen ninety seven issue, which was after
Speaker 1: Haile and Gody had both died, quote, a little over
Speaker 1: a century ago, colored women had no social status, and indeed,
Speaker 1: only thirty years ago the term womanhood was not large
Speaker 1: enough in this Christian republic to include any woman of
Speaker 1: African descent. That's from a piece that was clearly written
Speaker 1: for white women to let them know that quote. The
Speaker 1: thousands of cultured and delightfully useful women of the colored
Speaker 1: race who are worth knowing and who are prepared to
Speaker 1: cooperate with white women in all good efforts are simply
Speaker 1: up to date new women in the best sense of
Speaker 1: that much abused term. Uh. Even so, the magazine was
Speaker 1: widely read and widely respected. In the words of the
Speaker 1: Philadelphia City Item in eighteen seventy quote, it has been
Speaker 1: well remarked that where Goati's is taken, there is domestic neatness, comfort, elegance, virtue,
Speaker 1: which we think is saying a good deal for the
Speaker 1: American woman. God bless godies and keep it with us.
Speaker 1: Many years Gody sold the publication to John Hill, says Hallenbeech,
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy seven, after he and Hale both retired.
Speaker 1: As of their retirement, she was eighty nine and he
Speaker 1: was seventy three, so they worked on this magazine almost
Speaker 1: until the end of their lives. Lewis Antwine Gody died
Speaker 1: the following year. On November twenty ninth, eighteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: Sarah J. Hale, who called herself an editress, died on
Speaker 1: April thirtieth, eighteen seventy nine. She had continued to write
Speaker 1: for much of her life, publishing poems, fiction essays, recipe books,
Speaker 1: etiquette manuals, and a women's encyclopedia titled Woman's Record or
Speaker 1: Sketches of All Distinguished Women from the Creation to Ady
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty four, arranged in four eras with selections from
Speaker 1: female writers of every age. That was all the title,
Speaker 1: But in her day she was so associated with Godey's
Speaker 1: Lady's Book that people called it missus Hale's magazine. She's
Speaker 1: pretty complicated. Yeah, you know, I want to like her
Speaker 1: in some ways, but that whole like nose down at
Speaker 1: fashion thing is a problem, and then it's a funny thing.
Speaker 1: Where just as as the magazine was claiming that it
Speaker 1: did not take a political stance but obviously did because
Speaker 1: of its refusal to acknowledge certain things, I feel like similarly,
Speaker 1: and obviously on a much more important level, that's also
Speaker 1: how she dealt with fashion, right, She's like, I don't
Speaker 1: want fashion, which is in itself a commentary on fashion right,
Speaker 1: and she would consult on women's apparel at Vassar but
Speaker 1: didn't want fashion involved. It's a fascinating thing to me.
Speaker 1: He's got a lot of contradictions. You can There are
Speaker 1: scans of a lot of these, a lot of issues
Speaker 1: of this book that you can see online. You can
Speaker 1: read through. I mean, there's it goes on for years.
Speaker 1: There's pages and pages of stuff you can dive into
Speaker 1: if you were interested in little glimpses of life for
Speaker 1: nineteenth century white women. Slash the kinds of standards the
Speaker 1: magazine was really heavily reinforcing. Yeah, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out
Speaker 1: of the archive, if you heard an email address or
Speaker 1: a Facebook RL or something similar over the course of
Speaker 1: the show, that could be obsolete now. Our current email
Speaker 1: address is History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can
Speaker 1: find us all over social media at missed in History,
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