Martha Joanna Lamb (1829–1893)

[Martha Joanna Reade Nash].  American author, born in Plainfield, MA, on the 13th of August 1829. She began writing at an early age, and in 1852 married Charles A. Lamb, and moved to Chicago. She was there the founder of the Home for the Friendless and the Half-orphan Asylum. In 1866 she moved to New York, and devoted all her attention to literature. In 1883 she became the editor of the Magazine of American History. Her best work is The History of the City of New York (2 vols., 1877–81), besides which she has written numerous historical sketches, novels and shorter stories, among which are Spicy, a novel (1873); Play School Stories (1874); The Christmas Owl (1881); Wall Street in History (1883). She died on the 2nd of January 1893, in New York City. See also “An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving.”