Lady Editor : Encounter Books : 9781641771788 : 164177178X : 16 Sep 2021 : "For half a century Sarah Josepha Hale was the best known and most influential woman in America. As editor of Godey's Lady's Book, Hale was the leading cultural arbiter for the growing nation. 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, N.Y., Sarah Josepha Hale used her powerful pen to build popular acceptance of women's right to an education, their right to work, and their right to manage their own money. There is hardly an aspect of nineteenth-century culture in which Hale did not \gure prominently as a pathbreaker. She was one of the \rst editors to promote American authors writing on American themes. Her stamp of approval helped advance the reputations of such writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfe