The Woman Behind Thanksgiving with Melanie Kirkpatrick
Overview of this Episode
In this episode of the Trust Your Voice podcast, host Sylvie Légère sat down with Melanie Kirkpatrick, writer-journalist, author of three books: Lady Editor: Sarah Josepha Hale and the Making of the Modern American Woman; Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience (2016) and Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad (2012), and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, to enlighten you about women and the history of Thanksgiving.
In this conversation, Sylvie and Melanie discuss:
Story of Sarah Hales and her influence
The history of Thanksgiving
Condition of Women in 1800s
How Sarah advocated for Thanksgiving
Get to know Melanie more on her website http://www.MelanieKirkpatrick.com.
We hope you enjoy the episode! Tell us what you think by leaving a review on Apple podcasts. Stay tuned for more episodes and be sure to subscribe to the Trust Your Voice podcast on your favorite podcast player.
Episode Transcript
Sylvie Legere 0:10
Have you ever felt challenged with making life changing decisions or leading in the public square or simply aligning your thoughts with your actions? Well, then you're in the right place. Welcome to trust your voice podcast. My name is Sylvie. And as a civically engaged intrapreneur. And mom, I understand the challenges of advocating for yourself and others while attempting to balance your personal and professional demands. I had to develop a personal system of success in every area of my life. And now, I want to help you build your unique system and truly trust your voice, even and especially when it shakes. By the end of each episode, you'll be energized to spark your creative leadership make purposeful connection and confidently prioritize the matters that bring you the most joy. So let's start the show. So my guest today is Melanie Kirkpatrick. She is a writer, journalist based in Connecticut, and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. She contributes reviews and commentaries to various publications, including the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, which she has worked for 30 years. She's the author of three books, Lady editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, and the Making of the Modern American women. Thanksgiving: the holiday of the heart of the American experience, and Escape from North Korea: the untold story of Asia's Underground Railroad. So I invite everyone to visit our website, melaniekirkpatrick.com. So Thanksgiving is really fast approaching. So I'm very excited to talk about the history of Thanksgiving, but particularly the woman who was instrumental in making Thanksgiving a national holiday, at a time when women had very limited rights, including no rights to vote. So Melanie, welcome to the show.
Melanie Kirkpatrick 1:58
It's wonderful to be with you. Sylvie, thank you for inviting me.
Sylvie Legere 2:01
Oh, we met several years back when you had just published your book on Thanksgiving. And then you let me know about the book that you published lady editor of the book about Sarah Hale. And I'm really excited to talk about her. What a fascinating woman and the force of nature. She was a catalyst for change in the condition of women. So tell us about about Sarah Hale, but also what life was like for women at a time that she became the editor of one of the first women's publication, The Lady's book
Melanie Kirkpatrick 2:36
Her name is Sarah Josepha Halel. And she was from New Hampshire, born in 1788, just after the revolution, of course, and she lived 90 years. So she died in 1877, if I remember correctly, and during that period, she was first of all, she was homeschooled, and her mother believed the girls should be as well educated as boys. So her mother taught Sara and her brother together. But when as they got a little older, her brother Horatio was able to go off to college. And so off, he went to Dartmouth, which was a few miles away from their home. But Horatio would come home every once in a while, and he would teach Sarah everything he had learned at college. So I like to think that she was really the first woman to get the equivalent of a college degree in America. There was at that period of time, there was no institute of higher education for women. So moving forward very quickly, she married a lawyer who died suddenly leaving her with four children and a fifth on the way. And she and her husband had had planned to educate their kids in a very thorough way the girls as well as the boy, boys, but when he died, Sarah Hale was left with very little money. They were comfortable, but they didn't have a lot of savings. So she began to write thinking that she could sell her poetry. And then she wrote a novel and helped make a living that way for her family. And she got a small amount of money from that. But then out of the blue at the end of 1827, she received an invitation to edit a new magazine for women and intellectual magazine that was going to be started in Boston. And she decided to accept. Her friends thought she was nuts, and she was criticized because when she went to Boston to start the magazine, she took the baby with her but she had to leave behind the other four children whom she She sent to live with various relatives. They eventually all were able to come together in Boston. So this was a temporary measure. But in Boston, the name of the magazine was the ladies magazine. And it was, as I said it really an intellectual magazine. There have been other magazines for women, but they were short lived, and they were very frivolous. And Hale wanted to create something that was more serious. And she had a couple of goals in mind when she began the magazine in 1828, a period I should add, when only half of American women were literate, and there still was no institute of higher education for women. So Hale wanted to focus both on the topic of education for women. That was number one. And she also had a second goal. She believed that she was a great patriot that her father had fought in the revolution, all of her relatives, male relatives had fought in the revolution. And she was an enormous fan of George Washington. And she believed that the revolution had unified the American colonies into states. But she believed that the country wasn't unified culturally. And so she decided that part of her goal as an editor would be to focus on American topics, American themes, written by American authors. This would seem seem an obvious goal for an American magazine, but back in 1828, this was new. Most met there weren't many magazines back then. But those that were published, many of them stole articles from British publications, or from American newspapers and reprinted them in their, their magazines without giving them usually without giving credit. But Hale insisted on giving credit always to the authors. And she, she had a very because of her fine education, she had a very fine literary sensibility. And she helped to develop the reputations of such authors, as Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and many other well known names. At the same time, she focused heavily on developing female authors as well. And she published a heavily published many, many women who would write on nonfiction topics especially travelogues, she enlisted Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was a young writer at the time to write stories about the American countryside and help because readers wanted to know what their country their new country was like. She also published many, many poems, and she wrote hundreds and hundreds of poems herself. And finally, she published fiction as well.
Sylvie Legere 8:14
So it's fascinating, you know, how her magazine was the first women's magazine that was an intellectual magazine focused on publishing really great stories and great authors. She also, I think, use the magazine as a platform to introduce traditions to American life, right ways of, of selling celebrating holidays. And she introduced a few, a few traditions. Is that right?
Melanie Kirkpatrick 8:40
Yes, that's right. The magazine was so successful that a man in a publisher in Philadelphia, Louis goatee bought it. And in order to get her to get Sarah hailed as the editor of his magazine, which they joined together and to make to making a magazine called The lady's book, and it was in that magazine that now that she had financial support for her work, that she was able to expand the reach. And she continued focusing on literature and intellectual conversations such as about women's rights, but at the same time, she moved in to more practical areas. She was the first editor to publish recipes section. She also wrote about manners she wrote about health and the the and fashion she didn't like having fashion in her magazine, but she understood that it was a necessary evil that is Drew readers. A lot of readers liked reading fat reading about seeing the pictures and reading about fashion. So she she lived with it, but she wasn't happy about it. Her publisher was happy though, because he had to help them sell copies.
Sylvie Legere 10:00
Yeah, she wrote several editorials about also really prompting women to become educated to be to seek to understand how society was functioning, and also to advance the education of their children. And she was advocating for specific jobs for women rights, such as becoming teachers, and also working for the Postal Service. For instance, she really pushed for reforms in that direction. How did she harness this level of influence, and in some ways, political influence, to be able to make these drastic changes in the lives of women.
Melanie Kirkpatrick 10:43
By the time she was focusing on specific, encouraging women to enter specific professions, teaching medicine, post mass misters, for example, and scientific fields, she was very keen on women entering into scientific fields, for example, astronomy and biology and botany. But her magazine became extremely popular period before the Civil War, it had the largest circulation of any magazine in America, and it was distributed nationwide. So she had she had a powerful pen. She was a very good writer, very emphatic, very pointed, very persuasive. But in a, how can I say it in a genteel way? So she didn't take a hammer and, you know, hammer home her points, crudely, she was a very well mannered, very delightful woman. And that came through in her writing as well. So a part of to answer your question about how she was able to get these ideas across. I think she had the help of Mr. Gowdy, who was a great self promoter. And so that was helpful, but it was more Sara herself. She led her readers on this course, she started in the 1820s, with a very heavy focus on education for women. And that continued through the years, but she changed her focus. At first, it was to help persuade her readers that education for women was important. So that was an essential first step. As you pointed out earlier, one of the arguments was that they could be better mothers, if they were themselves well educated. But then as the years went by, she started writing about schools that were being formed, specifically for educating women and gave very detailed analyses of these schools to help her readers choose schools for their daughters. And then as the years went by, she moved into the professions. She was a very keen advocate for Elizabeth batt Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree. And so she was always on top of things, in looking for new ideas and trying to find areas in which women could participate in American society to their full potential. And that included being wives and mothers. At the same time that she was writing about education and women entering the professions. She also thought that women needed to have a profession more professional education, and how to be good wives and mothers, not relying just on instinct, but actually learning how to be good cooks are learning about child rearing practices, and certainly about health I had and people were very ignorant back then, and having a magazine that helped them live their daily lives was important. She also thought that the work of women at home was undervalued, and she wanted society to place a higher value on on women's work in the home. It sounds kind of familiar today, too, doesn't it?
Sylvie Legere 14:34
Hi, Sylvie, here, are you ready to trust your voice? I've got something just for you. Get your copy of my newest book, trust your voice. In the book, I give you big ideas, practical steps to gaining confidence so that you can take on new challenges in your life and trust your instincts and your own voice. You can find it on amazon.com And feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn and Instagram. If you have questions or feedback about the book or this show. Now let's get back to To the episode.
Sylvie Legere 15:02
That's right is it was amazing reading your book actually how current everything felt like the issues that she was discussing how she was advocating the excerpts even that you have of her writing felt very current. But what was also interesting given her platform given her passion for women ability to earn a living, actually, she was a great advocate of widows and children. She was also politically engaged and she was against the right women to vote and and that's probably I think you noted why she was not she is not in this Annika falls National Women's Hall of Fame. Why in the research that you've done on on Sarah Hales, what why do you think she lobbied against the woman's right to vote, which seems to be countered to her views and on women's access to education
Melanie Kirkpatrick 15:57
From the perspective of the 21st century, you're right, it does seem to be counter to her views. But from the perspective of the 18th and early 19th centuries, I don't think that's the case. Hale had a very interesting argument she about against suffrage, that she said, politics is a dirty business. And women should rise above it, women shouldn't, if they were voting and participating as elected officials in politics, they would have to roll around in the muck as well. So in it, who can argue that politics is a dirty business, I guess, in some sense, to some extent. So she thought women had a higher moral character than men. And that women could be more effective in politics, if they didn't have to compromise and work with people to develop, you know, compromise solutions that might not be of the highest moral value. So she said that women could be more effective women could be more effective if they stayed out of the everyday managing of politics and instead advise their husbands and male friends on the virtues that the higher goal to so that they wouldn't, the men would try to keep their eyes on their efforts. All was on a higher moral plane. So, you know, if you're talking about, you know, the early in mid 18th century, this was an attitude that depressing. A large majority of women shared they did not want women to have the vote. Now, by the time she died in the 1870s, and she was 90, I'd like to think that maybe her view was shifting a little bit, she came to support women running for school boards. And thinking that her argument there was the children, women, lots of women were teachers, women were intimately involved in the education of their children. And they had some good ideas. So that was maybe a toe in the water. If she had lived to be another couple of decades. Older, she might have changed her mind.
Sylvie Legere 18:30
Well, she was not afraid, though, to get into politics, whether it is to establish a memorial, or to really advocate for to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Right. So share with us a little bit what was Thanksgiving, like, at the time before it became a national holiday? It was it was a different day in each state. Right? It was determined by in your other book, it was really, each state had its own day, and it was a very, it was actually a religious originally or religious holiday, which is not anymore, but tell us a little bit. What was Thanksgiving like to add her at the time of Sara Hale.
Melanie Kirkpatrick 19:15
Thanksgiving is America's oldest tradition. And it goes back even before the pilgrims and the Indians met in 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, to celebrate a harvest festival. We call that the first Thanksgivings, but in fact, there were previous ones and involving Europeans and Native Americans, but the native things. The native tribes also had Thanksgiving, native Thanksgiving celebrations, and all of those were influences on the holiday we celebrate today. Religion was a very important part of the holiday and I'd argue it still is though it's It takes a different form. People don't go to church or synagogue on Thanksgiving anymore. But if if there's a day when a family says grace around the dinner table, I think it's Thanksgiving day people are, you know, giving thanks to a greater being, than no matter how they will define it. It's not associated with any particular religious faith. But Thanksgiving until Hale came along, Thanksgiving was celebrated state by state. Some states didn't bother to have a Thanksgiving some years. But most did. And Hale had this idea that instead of each state's having its own celebration that they didn't coordinate the date. So you, there was a wonderful saying that you could enjoy many Thanksgiving dinners. If you planned your itinerary, your travel itinerary, right, because you know, one state would have one and at the end of September, another couple in October, some more in November. And sometimes Thanksgiving was even celebrated in early December. But so she had this idea, starting in the 1840s, that if Americans could all celebrate together, on the same day, it would help to bring us together and help us focused together on the blessings of our of our nation. So in a way it in a way, Thanksgiving was somewhat Peter, something of a patriotic holiday, in her mind as well. So she started calling for a National Thanksgiving Day in the pages of goatees lady's book. Separate to that she conducted a private letter writing campaign to what we would call influencers of the day. And those included members of Congress, senior military officials, governors, very much so governors, and presidents of the United States. And because she was such a well known and influential figure, people wrote back to her and the governors were almost all enthusiastic about it. A couple in the South were not. They said it was a damned Yankee holiday, the governor of Virginia wrote to her, and he didn't want anything to do with it. But most governors liked the idea. But the presidents of the United States who would write to her said no, they said, and this is a very interesting argument to me. They said that they didn't the Constitution did not give them the authority to call a Thanksgiving Day that that authority was in the hands of the governors. Well, Hale kept up her campaign. And as the country was going more and more divided, she's stepped it up. And because she hoped that if we could have a National Thanksgiving Day that would help to prevent civil war. As we know, that didn't happen. But in 1863, Abraham Lincoln heeded her call and called a National Thanksgiving Day. And ever since then, this has been an unbroken series of Thanksgivings, that began with Abraham Lincoln in 1863. And if you look at his proclamation, it's a beautiful piece of prose to begin with. But it is He's appealing to all Americans, not just not just those who live in the Union, but also those who were in the Confederacy. And he asked that Americans celebrate with one heart, a beautiful phrase, to give thanks for our blessings as a nation.
Sylvie Legere 24:17
Yeah, that is a beautiful phrase to celebrate with that how it is meant to bring everyone together, because that's what it is. It is about and that's what still felt today. Do you how would you continue to characterize you know how unique it is in the world? That's you wrote the book on Thanksgiving and compare it well, how would you characterize Thanksgiving?
Melanie Kirkpatrick 24:38
Other countries that have sort of Thanksgiving It's not nothing that is so deeply involved with the history of our country as our Thanksgiving Day is, but there are other countries where for religious regions or traditional reasons they come together to give thanks. There are A couple of countries that have taken on the American tradition Canada, your native home is one of them. Brazil is another there was an ambassador from Brazil to the United States who loved the holiday. And when he went home, this is in the late 40s 1940s. I think when he went home, he helped to establish holiday Thanksgiving holiday in Brazil, but Americans to have celebrated the holiday wherever they find themselves in the world. And Hale encouraged that celebration. She said, Wherever you go, and in, you know, anywhere in the world, you can should come together on Thanksgiving day to celebrate and she would in her magazine, she would publish reports from people in Germany and Japan and other countries, about Americans about how they celebrated the holiday. Another thing if I just haven't just take a minute to add Sylvie is that she thought Thanksgiving and this is the tradition of thanksgiving for sure. She thought Thanksgiving was the time to remember the less fortunate. And that is helping the poor, and making sure the poor get a good Thanksgiving dinner has been a feature of the holidays since almost the very beginning. So and of course, it is very much so today, when you have so many religious groups and nonprofits who worked to see that the homeless, prisoners, the sick, the elderly, they can also share in this in this holiday. It's like the ideas that all Americans are coming together at the same table.
Sylvie Legere 26:46
Yeah, that's right. And and it's also it's also amazing how people open their homes to welcome those who are alone on Thanksgiving. No one is left to celebrate Thanksgiving alone. So thank you for writing these these two books. Actually, I think that your story of Thanksgiving is, is just so such a great memoir about this amazing holiday but also Sara Hill and what she does tremendous woman in what she was able to do at her time is so inspiring. I can't help but ask what is next art? What are you working on? Or what characters have you met? Because I know you met Sarah Hales as you were researching Thanksgiving. And it prompted you researcher right. So what's next for you? What project are you working on?
Melanie Kirkpatrick 27:34
I haven't settled on another book idea yet. I'm I may do something else on Thanksgiving. But I'm also thinking of going back and writing another book on North Korea. There's a lot more to say about that sad country. And I because I wrote a book on North Korea. I have a lot of contacts. And I know a lot of people who could help me. So I'm mean I may I may go back to that. It would be I welcome ideas if you
Sylvie Legere 28:08
I will keep that away. I will keep that in mind. Well, I look forward to hearing more about your next projects. And thank you so much for being on the show. And I'd like to invite everyone to read Melanie's book Lady Editor: Sarah Josepha Hale, and also her book on Thanksgiving. They make both great gifts and also really great topics of conversation. So we'll add the links in the show notes. So thank you, Melanie
Melanie Kirkpatrick 28:33
Thank you and let me be among the first I wish you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving.
Sylvie Legere 28:40
Yeah, I wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving. So thanks, Melanie.
Melanie Kirkpatrick 28:44
Bye bye.
Sylvie Legere 28:45
Bye. Thank you so much.
Melanie Kirkpatrick 28:47
You're welcome.
Sylvie Legere 28:52
Thank you for joining me Sylvie Legere on my trust your voice podcast. I hope that this episode brought you a new way to think about your voice, how to trust yourself and how to use your voice for good in your life and in your community. If you like this podcast, be sure to leave us a review in Apple podcasts. And subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast player again.