George Pope Morris, a sentimental poet and popular songwriter, grew up in Philadelphia and New York and secured his first job in a printing house, where he also began writing verses for the city's daily newspapers. Morris's professional life spanned the literary and journalistic worlds as he combined magazine editing with the writing of poetry and song. The invitations to society balls in the small collection of Morris's manuscripts at the Library of Congress (including one from Moses Beach to a party celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the New York Sun) attest to his popularity in New York society and his recognition as a leading member of the journalistic establishment.

During the first year of its existence, 1824, the New-York Mirror, and Ladies' Literary Gazette was the product of the twenty-one-year-old Morris and a distinguished editor, Samuel Woodworth. Woodworth had written several plays and an operetta and was known...