an American writer and an influential editor. She is the author of the nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb. Hale famously campaigned for the creation of the American holiday known as Thanksgiving, and for the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument.
Autumn is the time when the overflowing garners of America call for this expression of joyful gratitude.
There is a deep moral influence in these periodical seasons of rejoicing, in which a whole community participate. They bring out, and together, as it were, the best sympathies of our nature.
[Thanksgiving] is a festival which will never become obsolete, for it cherishes the best affections of the heart—the social and domestic ties.
