Godey's Lady's Book : Sarah Hale and the Construction of Sentimental Nationalism

Abstract

The article, " Godey's Lady Book : Sarah Hale and the Construction of Sentimental Nationalism," investigates the intercession of Hale's political life with her work as Louis Godey's editor for the Book as America neared the Civil War. Godey, who barred any content he deemed might adversely affect his subscription rates across the North and South, forced Hale to promote her political beliefs through the inclusion of otherwise-perceived innocuous literary content that might become the vehicle for her fight against national division. The article makes its argument through a tethered-use of Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities and Mary Louise Kete's Sentimental Collaborations arguing that Hale sought to play upon the feelings of grief and mourning of Godey's transnational readership. As such, Hale chose literary work that exacerbated the reader's emotions, such as poetry, to invoke feelings of the possible loss of loved ones in battle such as might occur in the Secession War.