Howe, Julia Ward (1819-1910), an American writer, lecturer, and reformer, was one of the most famous women of her time. She wrote the words of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and introduced the idea of Mother’s Day.
Howe was born on May 27, 1819, in New York City into a prominent family. She married American social reformer Samuel Gridley Howe in 1843 and moved to Boston. She wrote poems and plays and helped her husband edit The Commonwealth, an antislavery paper.
In 1861, during the American Civil War, Howe visited military camps near Washington, D.C. There, she wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” to be sung to the tune of the popular American song “John Brown’s Body.” It was published in the Atlantic Monthly two months later and became the major war song of the Union forces.
After the war, Howe became increasingly interested in the women’s movement. In 1868, she helped organize the New England Woman’s Club and served for many years as its president. Howe also became the first president of the New England Woman Suffrage Association.
After her husband’s death in 1876, Howe became a frequent writer on literary and other cultural topics as well as on women’s rights. Her writings include A Trip to Cuba (1860), Sex and Education (1874), Modern Society (1881), Margaret Fuller (1883), and Reminiscences (1899). In 1908, she became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She died on Oct. 17, 1910.
