Lucretia P. Hale
Lucretia Peabody Hale (1820-1900) was an American author and a notable figure in 19th-century literature, best known for her children's stories about the Peterkin family. Born into a distinguished Boston family, she was the daughter of a newspaper owner and the niece of prominent figures in American literary and political life, including Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale. Despite a comfortable upbringing, her family faced financial difficulties in the 1850s, prompting Hale to pursue writing as a means of independence.
She began her career with the novel "Margaret Percival in America" (1850) and later gained fame for the Peterkin stories, which debuted in the magazine "Our Young Folks" and were later published as collections in the 1880s. These stories are recognized as some of the first American nonsense literature, featuring absurd scenarios resolved by the wise Lady from Philadelphia. Hale remained unmarried and became actively involved in social issues, notably serving as the first woman on the Boston School Committee. In her later years, she faced challenges with her health, ultimately passing away in a mental institution in 1900. Her legacy endures through her contributions to children's literature and her role in advocating for women's participation in education.
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Subject Terms
Lucretia P. Hale
Author
- Born: September 2, 1820
- Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
- Died: June 12, 1900
- Place of death: Belmont, Massachusetts
Biography
Lucretia Peabody Hale was born in 1820 into a distinguished family in Boston. Her father, owner of the Boston newspaper, the Daily Advertiser, was a nephew of Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War figure, and her brother, Edward Everett Hale, wrote the well-known book The Man Without a Country (1865). Hale’s mother, Sarah Preston Everett Hale, had eleven children but still found the time to help her husband as his secretary. Hale’s uncle, her mother’s brother, was Edward Everett, a well-known writer, orator, and scholar of the time.
As part of a newspaper family, Hale was frequently involved with the enterprise of the newspaper, helping to write, edit, and translate articles. She first attended Elizabeth Peabody’s dame school as a child and then the George B. Emerson School for Young Ladies in Boston. In school, she met two women who would become lifelong friends: Margaret Harding, a portrait painter, and Susan Lyman Lesley, who would become the model for one of Hale’s best-known characters, the Lady from Philadelphia in the Peterkin stories.
In the 1850’s, after many years of living in comfort and prosperity, Hale’s father was forced to sell the newspaper and move the family from its large Boston home to a smaller one in Brookline, Massachusetts. At about this time, Hale began to write fiction. Her first novel, written for adults with her brother, was Margaret Percival in America (1850). Around 1861, she began to write the Peterkin children’s stories for which she is best known today. Hale first told the stories of the Peterkins to Meggie Lesley, the daughter of her close friend. When Hale was in her mid-forties, some of the early stories were published in the magazine Our Young Folks and later in the influential St. Nicholas Magazine. The stories later were compiled into two collections, The Peterkin Papers (1880) and The Last of the Peterkins, with Others of Their Kin (1886). The Peterkin stories are some of the first American nonsense stories. The Peterkins pursue their delightfully absurd solutions to such problems as how to correct having salt put into their coffee instead of sugar. They are invariably rescued from their absurdities by the wise Lady from Philadelphia.
Although Hale never married, she became more independent from her family in the late 1860’s. After her father died in 1863 and her mother in 1865, she traveled with her sister to Egypt in 1867 to visit her brother Charles, the American consul general there. When she returned to Boston, she taught in a correspondence school and became interested in women’s issues. She was elected as the first woman member of the Boston School Committee. Hale continued to live in Boston where, in her later years, she became blind and mentally incapacitated. She died in a mental institution in 1900 and is buried at Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts.