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Home ...
with
Lydia Maria Child!
Over the river and
through the woods,
to grandfather's house
we go!
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| Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) was a native of Medford, Massachusetts. She
first made her name as a popular author and then as editor of The Juvenile
Miscellany, the first American children's magazine. In 1829, she published the
best-selling The American Frugal Housewife, filled with recipes and practical
hints. |
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Title page of The Juvenile
Miscellany |
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In 1833, Lydia Maria Child wrote An Appeal in favor of
that class of Americans called Africans, a strong and vigorous attack on
slavery. The reaction against Child and her book was immediate. Juvenile
Miscellany folded due to canceled subscriptions, her library privileges at the Boston
Athenaeum were revoked, she was ostracized by New England society.
After ten years of sacrifice working for the abolitionist cause, Child became
disillusioned by the movement's factionalism and worn down by the need to support herself
and an impractical husband. While she never abandoned her passionate support of
justice and equal rights, she withdrew from open involvement in the organized abolitionist
movement and began, in the 1840s, to slowly revive her literary career by writing
nonpolitical essays, poetry and children's literature. |
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In 1845, Lydia Maria Child wrote a poem titled "The New-England
Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day," best known for its opening lines "Over the
river and through the wood, to grandfather's house we go." Her poem gained its
lasting popularity in 1874 when her friend, the Quaker abolitionist poet John Greenleaf
Whittier, included it in Child Life, an anthology of poetry for children.
Click here for Lydia Maria Child's poem.
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