Julia Ward Howe

Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910, American author and social reformer, b. New York City. She assisted her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe , in his philanthropic projects and in editing the Boston Commonwealth, an abolitionist paper. Her first book of poetry was published in 1854. Mrs. Howe wrote and lectured in behalf of woman suffrage, African-American emancipation, and other causes, and helped found a world peace organization. In Nov., 1861, after watching Union troops march into battle, she wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," her most famous work. It was published in the Atlantic Monthly in Feb., 1862. The American Academy of Arts and Letters elected her as its first woman member (1908). Besides writing several volumes of poetry, she was the author of Sex and Education (1874), Modern Society (1881), and a biography of Margaret Fuller (1883).

Bibliography: See her Reminiscences, 1819-1899 (1899); biographies by her daughters L. E. Richards and M. H. Elliott (1915, repr. 1970) and by V. H. Ziegler (2004); L. H. Tharp, Three Saints and a Sinner (1956).

Howe, Julia Ward (1819–1910), poet and lecturer on social reform, was particularly interested in Abolitionism and woman suffrage. With her husband, Samuel G. Howe, she edited the Boston Commonwealth, an antislavery paper, and among her books are Sex and Education (1874), Modern Society (1881), and a life of Margaret Fuller (1883). She is famous as the author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” (1862). She was the sister of Sam Ward and the mother of Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott. Her collected poems include Passion Flowers (1854) and Later Lyrics (1866).

Battle Hymn of the Republic. Poem by Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) written 1862, first line being ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord’, sung to the tune of John Brown's Body. Last verse beginning ‘He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave’ is not in orig., authorship being unknown.