Caroline Howard Gilman, a sentimental moralizer who chronicled middle-class domesticity, edited one of the earliest magazines for youth in the United States. Interesting today as a reflection of what Americans thought was suitable reading for the family hearth in the 1830s, her publication pictured women and children as the moral center of society.

As a popular literary figure of the pre-Civil War era, Gilman attempted to lessen the tensions between the North and the South through her varied writings, some of which appeared in her magazine before being published in book form. Her efforts to draw together the two sections of the country stemmed from her own divided loyalties.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Gilman was the third daughter and fifth of six children of Samuel and Anna Lillie Howard. Her father, a prosperous shipwright, died when she was two and her mother when she was ten. Her education...