Beekley Book Talk (In Person): Lady Editor by Melanie Kirkpatrick

book cover featuring photograph of Sarah Josepha Hale surrounded by flowers
Event Date: 
Tuesday, September 7, 2021 - 6:30pm to 7:30pm

New Hartford author Melanie Kirkpatrick returns to the Beekley with a program on her latest book, Lady Editor: Sarah Josepha Hale and the Making of the American Woman. As “editress” of the popular Godey’s Lady’s Book, Hale was the most influential woman of the 19th century. Women (and many men) 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, Sarah Josepha Hale used her powerful pen to promote women’s right to an education, to work, and to manage their own money. She introduced the Christmas tree and the white wedding gown to America. Our Thanksgiving holiday wouldn’t exist without Hale, who encouraged Lincoln to proclaim the first in the modern series of national Thanksgivings. Historian Nathaniel Philbrick offers early praise for Lady Editor: “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 Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. She is the author of Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience and Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad. Visit her at www.MelanieKirkpatrick.com.

Lady Editor will be available for purchase at $25. Cash or check, please.