| Notes |
- From FindaGrave:
Author, Social Reformer. She was active in many social causes, women's rights, slavery and rankled many with her religious views. However, at the urging of President Abraham Lincoln, she was asked to write a song that would counter Confederate hymns and anthems. Her poem "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was the result. After submitting it to the "Atlantic Monthly", for which she was paid five dollars, it culminated in being set to music, becoming the anthem of the North. Julia Howe entered into a violent marriage which inhibited her liberal views and causes.
Her husband controlled, resented and at times mismanaged her financial inheritance and held the notion, prevalent at the time, a woman's place was in the home. He forced her to remain in the marriage by threatening to keep her from their four children. However, she became self educated while learning several languages, and published an abolitionist paper.
Freed from the marriage upon her older husband's death, she set up shop on Beacon Street in Boston, Massachusetts, where she immersed herself in a busy social life while writing, lecturing and organizing women's clubs where ever she went. Her fight to create the first Mother's Day in America never succeeded but the seed was planted.
In 1908, she was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her appearances always started with a rendering of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Upon her death at the age of ninety one, services were held at the Church of the Disciples and at the Boston Symphony Hall with crowds overflowing both structures. The United States Postal Service issued a Julia Ward Howe memorial stamp in 1988.
Bio by: Donald Greyfield
|
1819 - 1910 (91 years)
