Do You Know Sarah?

Do you know Sarah Josepha Buell Hale? I didn't until this week.
As a part of our Thanksgiving studies I checked out the beautifully illustrated picture book "Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving" by Laurie Halse Anderson. ( A study guide can be found here.)

It was Mrs. Hale's 38 year letter writing campaign to make a National Day of Thanksgiving that finally landed on President Lincoln's desk during the Nation's unrest of the Civil War. Wow! 38 years. Mrs. Hale was not only an advocate for Thanksgiving but a teacher, writer, and one of America's first women editors. She published writers such as Poe, Hawthorne, and Emerson. And most importantly, she penned Mary Had A Little Lamb!!! The poem was based on a real day when a lamb followed one of her students to school and waited outside all day.

How did I not know about this amazing woman? Because my history education stink, stank, stunk Mr. Grinch, that's why. This is just the kind of thing I hope to overcome with G's education. I hope to give him a memorable, interesting, and thought provoking history education.