She was responsible for Thanksgiving as a national holiday.

She was the early champion of elementary education for girls equal to that of boys and of higher education for women.

She was the first to advocate women as teachers in public schools.

As the friend and advisoer of Matthew Vassar, she helped organize Vassar College, the first school of collegiate rank for girls.

She demanded for housekeeping the dignity of a profession and put the term "domestic science" into the language.

She began the fight for the retention of property rights by married women.

She founded the first society for the advancement of women's wages, better working conditions for women and the reduction of child labor.

She started the first day nursery--boon to working mothers.

She was the first to stress the necessity of physical training for her sex.

She was the first to suggest public playgrounds.

She was among the earliest to recognize health and sanitation as divic problems and the first to crusade for remedial measures.

She organized, and for many years was president of, the Seaman's Aid, establishing the first Sailors' Home.

She sent out the first women medical missionaries.

She raised the money that finished Bunker Hill Monument.

She rescued the movement to preserve Mount Vernon as a national memorial.

She was the author of some two dozen books and hundreds of poems, including the best known children's rhyme in the English language: "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

She was the first woman editor in this country and for more than forty years resided over the destinies of Godey's Lady's Book.