Julia Ward Howe papers (RLC.Ms.556)

Biographical note

Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) was a prominent writer, poet, reformer, and lecturer, who was best known for writing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and her contributions to the women’s rights movement. Howe was born on May 27, 1819, in New York City to Samuel Ward, Jr., a wealthy stockbroker, and Julia Rush, a poet, who died when Julia was only five years old. In 1843, Julia married Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876), the head of the Perkins Institute of the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts, with whom she had six children. Julia Ward Howe wrote the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” in 1861, while in Washington, D.C., to help with the war effort. This poem became the rallying cry for Union soldiers towards the end of the American Civil War.

In 1868, Julia started to become more publicly active in reforms, particularly within the women’s movement. She was instrumental in establishing the New England Women’s Club, the American Woman Suffrage Association, the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, the New England Suffrage Association, and the Association for the Advancement for Women, which were all dedicated to improving opportunities for women in politics and education. From the 1880s until her death in 1910, Julia Ward Howe traveled throughout the United States, Europe, and Middle East on speaking tours and establishing more clubs for women wherever she went.

Julia Ward Howe passed away on October 17, 1910, at her home, Oak Glen, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, at the age of ninety-one.