Pride stoops, e'en valor yields to death

New Hampshire minister Uriah Wilcox had lived a long, exciting life during the early years of the United States. In 1775-1776, he sided with the "United Colonies" against the "Hostile Proceedings of the British Fleets," and helped organize a local militia company for the cause of independence. He gave input on the writing of the first State Constitution for New Hampshire and served on the town of Newport's general assembly before, towards the end of his life, being elected a member of the state House of Representatives. He was 72 when he died on March 18, 1822.

The death of such an important local hero could not go unnoticed by another person from Newport, New Hampshire: Sarah Josepha Hale. Hale was only then about to embark on a career in journalism and magazine publishing that would make her one of the most influential women of the century. Ten days after Wilcox's death, she wrote her poem "To the Memory of Rev. Uriah Wilcox":

Death reigns o'er all—the ghastly king,
On his pale courser traversing,
Aims well his arrow, and the blow
Is sure to lay his victim low.

Life weeps, hearts bleed; but fruitless all;
Youth, beauty, health and virtue fall
An easy prey his power beneath;
Pride stoops, e'en valor yields to death.

The poem is a far cry from her less negative poem about Mary's lamb. Still, Hale praises Wilcox in his death after having lived a life that earned "worth long known, and long belov'd." A life like that, she argues poetically, can not be all sad. It would be selfish, she says, to want to keep one like that on Earth when their spirit was merely on loan from heaven: "The saint survives in yon bright skies, / From earth's low cares the spirit free." She predicts what will happen at the final day of judgment:

When the last trump shall echo—"live!"
And graves their mouldering tenants give;
To that loud summons, whilst the sun,
In sackcloth, mourns his empire done:

The moon is blood, the globe is fire;
Stars fall, the shrinking heavens retire;
And ruin only reigns, where man
Had boasted o'er his little span:

Then, whilst before the judgment seat
The assembled universe shall meet;
Christians, like thee, will hear the word,
"Come, dwell forever with the Lord."

Death of Sarah Hale: I must bid farewell

Sarah Josepha Hale was 89 years old when she finally retired as "editress" from the extremely popular Godey's Lady's Book; she had served in that role for 40 years, becoming one of the most influential women of letters of the period. In her final editorial column, she wrote, "I must bid farewell to my countrywomen, with the hope that this work of half a century may be blessed to the furtherance of the happiness and usefulness in their Divinely appointed sphere." She died a year and four months later on April 30, 1879 at her Locust Street home in Philadelphia. She was 90 and interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Hale was mostly an editor and did not create substantial content, though she did write short sketches, poems (including "Mary's Lamb"), novels, and editorials. She also used her role to advocate for various fundraising efforts, including the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument, the restoration of Mount Vernon, and raising money for the Perkins School for the Blind. She also advocated for the celebration of Thanksgiving as a national holiday celebrated on a Thursday in November. She believed strongly in the pure spirit of women and cautioned against their joining the public sphere, getting involved with politics, and the like. She nevertheless championed various reforms for women's health and women's education. She also must have supported women getting jobs; she began her role as a writer and editor specifically to support her family after the death of her husband.

The year before her death, at a family celebration of her 90th birthday, Hale presented a poem she had written for the occasion:

Growing old! growing old! Do they say it of me?
Do they hint my fine fancies are faded and fled?
That my garden of life, like the winter-swept tree,
Is frozen and dying, or fallen and dead?

Is the heart growing old, when each beautiful thing,
Like a landscape at eve, looks more tenderly bright,
And love sweeter seems, as the bird's wan'dring wing
Draws nearer her nest at the coming of night?

Is the mind growing old when with ardor of youth,
  Through the flower walks of Wisdom, new paths it would try,
And seek, not for shells from the ocean of truth,
  But the pearl of great price which the world cannot buy?

Is the soul growing old? See the planet at even,
  When rising at morn, melts in glory above!
Thus, turning from earth, we creep closer to Heaven,
  Like a child to her father's warm welcoming love.

Does the mortal grow older as years roll away?
  'Tis change, not destruction;—kind winter will bring
Fresh life to the germ and perfect it,
  Decay holds the youth bud IMMORTAL, and heralds its spring.

Growing old! growing old! Can it ever be true,
  While joy for life's blessings is thankful and warm.
And hopes sown for others are blooming anew,
  And the Rainbow of Promise bends over the storm?

Growing old! growing old! No, we never grow old
  If, like little, children we trust in the WORD,
And, reckoning earth's treasures by Heaven's pure gold,
  We lay our weak hands on the strength of the LORD.

Hale: For the honor of womanhood

When Matthew Vassar established a women's college in New York, he had one particularly vocal and prominent critic: Sarah Josepha Hale. Hale, the editor of the heavily-circulated and highly-influential Godey's Lady's Book for half a century, as well as the author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," often wrote on behalf of women's issues — particularly education and health. Though she applauded Vassar's efforts, she had one issue: the name "Vassar Female College." As she wrote him on March 30, 1865:

Female! What female do you mean? Not a female donkey? Must not your reply be, 'I mean a female woman'? Then... why degrade the feminine sex to the level of animals... I write thus earnestly because I wish to have Vassar College take the lead in this great improvement in our language... I plead for the good of Vassar College, for the honor of womanhood and the glory of God.

The school had been in the works for four years by then, but Hale won out, and the school's name was changed to the simple title "Vassar College" in 1867. The term "Female" was scratched off the main building (pictured below). In their continued correspondence, Hale also objected to a school dress code and a proposed three-month academic break between December and April. One of the original "Seven Sisters," the school is now coeducational.

Hale supported the education of women in her ongoing efforts to promote economic self-sufficiency for her sex. This was the case in her own life; after the death of her husband, she was left with several children, and turned to the publishing industry for money. In her decades at Godey's Lady's Book, the "editress" (as she called herself) helped magazine one of the highest-selling monthly of the century. The influence she exuded over Vassar is a good example of the reputation she built for herself. Her interest in reform stopped (somewhat controversially) before reaching the political realm, however: she believed women had no need to vote, so long as they had influence over their husbands.

*More on the correspondence of Hale and Vassar is here.

Edison had a little lamb

Thomas Edison filed a patent for his newly-invented phonograph on February 19, 1878. The prolific inventor must have been a fan of literature; legend has it that the first words recorded onto the new device were from a poem.

Now known as a nursery rhyme, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" began as the poem called "Mary's Lamb," written by Sarah Josepha Hale, one of the most influential women of letters in the 19th century. Hale supported herself and her family after the death of her husband as an editor (or "editress," as she called herself). For nearly half a century, in fact, she was at the helm of Godey's Lady's Book, the Philadelphia-based magazine which had a whopping 150,000 subscribers by the onset of the Civil War.

Hale, who also influenced the birth of the modern Thanksgiving holiday and the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston, retired from the spotlight in 1877, a year before Edison's patent. The original "Mary's Lamb" (1830) is as follows:

Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And every where that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go;
He followed her to school one day —
That was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play,
To see a lamb at school.

And so the Teacher turned him out,
But still he lingered near,
And waited patiently about,
Till Mary did appear;
And then he ran to her, and laid
His head upon her arm,
As if he said — 'I'm not afraid —
You'll keep me from all harm.'

'What makes the lamb love Mary so?'
The eager children cry —
'O, Mary loves the lamb, you know,'
The Teacher did reply; —
'And you each gentle animal
In confidence may bind,
And make them follow at your call,
If you are always kind.'

*The image above is Thomas Edison with his early phonograph, taken by Mathew Brady's studio in 1877. An early (though not the original) recording of Edison, which includes a couple lines from "Mary's Lamb," is here.