Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791–1865)

Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard, was born in Norwich, Connecticut. In 1811, she co-founded a school for girls her friend Nancy Maria Hyde, and also administered and taught in other girls' schools. She began to publish anonymously before she married businessman Charles Sigourney in 1819 and later became a very popular writer under her married name. She published dozens of volumes of poetry and essays. She had several nicknames, including the Sweet Singer of Hartford. She also worked as an editor for Godey's Lady's Book and contributed her work to other journals. On a tour of Europe in 1840, she met writers including Maria Edgeworth, William Wordsworth, and Thomas Carlyle, an experience she wrote about in Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands (1842). Her memoir, entitled Letters of a Life, was published posthumously in 1866.