Mary Had a Little Lamb

What many think was a British nursery song is American. In 1816 in Sterling

Massachusetts, a lamb did follow a girl named Mary to school one day. Based on Mary Sawyer,

the rhyme was published by Sarah Josepha Hale, as part of a children's book. The song we know

today as “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was first published in 1830 by Lowell Mason in a music

book for school children as “Mary’s Lamb.” Mason was a firm believer in musical education and

work with the public schools in Boston to do so. Mason collaborated with Hale to create a song

based on her poem. Mason book Juvenile Lyre was the first public school songbook in America

(Pound, 1986).

During the 19th Century, women had very few options to earn money. Aside from house service

or teaching, there were not many options. The writing was one exception. For the most part,

women wrote things that would help in the “domestic sphere,” involving advice on how to be

good mothers and homemakers. Children's literature offered an option outside of how to work

for female authors since all women were expected to raise children it was acceptable to write for

them too. Nursery rhymes would have been something a Republican Mothers of the growing

middle class would have gladly purchased in her duties raising the next generation.(Gilbert &

Gubar, 2007)

Mason published his songbook for public schools in Boston. The northern states were by far

more progressive in education than the southern states. Starting in the 1930’s the growing middle

class in the Northeast pushed a culture of “moral and mental discipline ((Henretta, Hinderaker,

Edwards, & Self, 2015, p. 276). Mason’s ideas of musical education were very indicative of the

place and time of the era. “Mary Had a Little Lamb” is an American song who’s background
reflects the newly emerging national identity. Founded in ideals from the Enlightenment and

morals fueled by the Second Great Awakening, music became part of our public education and

Mary’s lamb is still popular today.

 References

Gilbert, S. M., & Gubar, S. (2007). Literature of the Nineteenth Century. In The Norton anthology of

literature by women: The traditions in English (Third ed., Vol. 1, pp. 407-432). New York:

W.W. Norton & Company.

Henretta, J. A., Hinderaker, E., Edwards, R., & Self, R. O. (2015). America: A concise history (6th ed.,

Vol. 1). Boston: Bedford / St Martin's.

Pound, G. (1986). Mason's Hand in "Mary's Lamb." The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music

Education, 7(1), 23-27. doi:10.1177/153660068600700103