“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” —Battle Hymn of the Republic
Julia Ward Howe was an American poet and author, best known for writing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” She was an advocate for abolitionism and a social activist particularly for women’s suffrage. Julia was born in New York City, May 27, 1819.
Her descendents were accomplished. On her father’s side she was descended from Roger Williams and two governors of Rhode Island. Her mother was the great grand niece of Revolutionary War legend Francis Marion who was nicknamed “The Swamp Fox.” Her father, Samuel, was a successful Wall Street banker. Her mother, Julia, was a published poet. Julia was educated by private tutors until she was 16.
She met, because of her father’s social status, the writer Charles Dickens, senator Charles Sumner, and journalist Margaret Fuller. Her eldest brother, Samuel, traveled in Europe and brought home a private library. She had access to those books and became well read. She attended lectures, studied foreign language, and wrote plays and dramas. Her earliest writings reflected the great unhappiness of her marriage.
She had met physician Samuel Howe and in 1843 they were wed in spite of their 18-year age difference. They had six children. Her children were to call her “the family champagne” because she tried to hide her unhappiness from them. But they knew. The Howes maintained three homes in Boston, Newport, and Portsmouth. The couple finally were separated in 1852.
When they married, Samuel had taken complete control of her estate income. After his death in 1876, she found through a series of bad investments, most of her money was gone. Julia’s social activism and writing were greatly shaped by her childhood and her married life. In 1870 she founded the weekly Woman’s Journal, a suffragist magazine and contributed to it for the next 20 years.
In November 1861 she and her husband met Abraham Lincoln at the White House when he was president. During the trip, a friend, James Clarke, suggested that she write new words to the song “John Brown’s Body,” which she did November 19, 1861. The song was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. It became one of the most popular songs of the Union during the U.S. Civil War.
She produced 11 issues of the literary magazine, Northern Lights, in 1867. After the war she focused her work on the causes of pacifism and women’s suffrage. She helped found the New England Women’s Club and the New England Woman Suffrage Association. She was founder and president of the Association of American Women which advocated for women’s education. In 1908 she was the first woman to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a society with a goal to foster, assist, and sustain excellence in American literature, music and art.
In 1987 she was honored by the U.S. Postal Service with a 14¢ Great Americans series postage stamp. The Julia Ward Howe School of Excellence in Chicago’s Austin community was named in her honor. The Rhode Island home, Oak Glen, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Her Boston home is a stop on the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail.
Julia War Howe died of pneumonia October 17, 1910 at her Portsmouth home at the age of 91. She was buried in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass.. At her memorial service, 4,000 individuals sang “Battle Hymn of the Republic” as a sign of respect which had been the custom to sing at each of Julia’s speaking engagements. After her death, her children collaborated on a biography published in 1916 which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography.