Julia Ward Howe

1819-1910. Writer and reformer Born in New York City, she was reared an Episcopalian and was privately educated. Her marriage to Samuel G. Howe (1843), a humanitarian and teacher of the blind, placed her in the company of prominent Bostonian intellectuals, poets, and social reformers. She belonged to the Radical Club and assisted her husband in editing the abolitionist paper The Commonwealth (1851-53). Becoming a Unitarian, she occasionally preached from Unitarian pulpits. After her husband's death (1876) she gave herself unceasingly to public service, a leader in every humanitarian movement or cause. She advocated woman suffrage, prison reform, international peace, and children's welfare. She also wrote travel books, essays, drama, and verse. Her most famous piece of poetry is “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”