About this Event
Join author Melanie Kirkpatrick in conversation with Beth Hessel on Melanie’s new biography of Sarah Josepha Hale, Philadelphia’s famous editor, women’s advocate, and godmother of our Thanksgiving holiday.
As the powerful editor of the Philadelphia-based Godey’s Lady’s Book, “Mrs. Hale” was the most influential woman of the 19th century. Women turned to her for advice on what to read, what to cook, how to behave, and – most important -- what to think. Twenty years before the declaration of women’s rights in Seneca Falls, NY Hale used her position to help change the national conversation on women’s rights to an education, to work as teachers and doctors, and to manage their own money. She helped shape a common aesthetic for the growing nation with her all-American approach to her magazine – publishing American authors writing on American topics, American fashions, American recipes. The quintessentially American holiday of Thanksgiving would not exist today without her long campaign in the pages of Godey’s to make it a shared national celebration. Edgar Allan Poe called Hale “a woman of fine genius.” Historian Nathaniel Philbrick says: “Thanks to Melanie Kirkpatrick, Hale finally has the biography she deserves—richly detailed and marvelously written.”
Melanie Kirkpatrick is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former deputy editor of the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. She is the author of Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of American Experience and Escape from North Korea. Visit her at www.MelanieKirkpatrick.com
This event will now require proof of vaccination. Please bring your vaccination card with you.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Athenaeum of Philadelphia, 219 South 6th Street, Philadelphia, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 10.00