Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879), editor of Boston’s Ladies’ Magazine, established the Seaman’s Aid Society in 1833 to provide employment for the wives of sailors as seamstresses and a place to sell their work. The Society also opened a Mariners House in the North End as a sailors’ boarding house and developed an industrial school for seamen’s daughters and a day nursery. Hale later became the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. In September of 1840, Hale organized the great women’s fair which raised enough money to complete the Bunker Hill monument. It had stood unfinished for more than a decade.
