Happy Birthday, Julia Ward Howe (lyricist of "Battle Hymn of the Republic")

May 27 is the the birthday of Julia Ward Howe, born on this date in 1819. Most people know her as the woman who wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” She was also a writer, a suffragist, and an abolitionist.
Julia Ward was born in New York City. She took charge of her own education, and made good use of the books her brother sent home from Europe. She married Samuel Gridley Howe — a doctor and a teacher for the blind — in 1843. He was 18 years older than she was, and they didn’t always agree on the proper role for a woman. Howe was very traditional and expected his wife to confine her life to the domestic sphere, but Julia was intelligent, educated, and inquisitive. She was fluent in seven languages and longed for a life outside the home. She settled for reading books on philosophy and being a writer. In 1846, she started a novel called The Hermaphrodite. She said, “It is not, understand me, a moral and fashionable work, destined to be published in three volumes, but the history of a strange being, written as truly as I know how to write it.” She never published the book, or even finished it, but it was in a collection that her granddaughter donated to Harvard. A graduate student discovered it in 1977 and it was finally published in 2004.
Howe published two books of poetry: Passion Flowers (1854) and Words for the Hour (1857). Her poems were very frank, and many people — including her husband — felt she exposed too many personal details. Their marriage was strained but they maintained a good working relationship on the inflammatory abolitionist paper The Commonwealth. She also wrote a play, a travel book, and a biography of Margaret Fuller.
In 1861, she accompanied her husband on a trip to Washington, D.C., to deliver medical supplies. She would often sing popular songs of the day with the Union troops. One of those songs was called “John Brown’s Body,” which was a marching song. One early morning, she was struck by the idea of writing new, Christian lyrics to the tune of “John Brown’s Body.” She called her new song “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and it was originally published as a poem in Atlantic Monthly. She was paid four dollars. The song became popular among Union soldiers and, later, among abolitionists. It’s reported that Abraham Lincoln cried the first time he heard it.
After the Civil War ended, Howe became involved with the suffragist movement and other causes to advance women’s rights. She organized the New England Woman Suffrage Association in 1868. In spite of their common cause, Howe and woman suffrage activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony often butted heads over matters of strategy and ideology.
In 1908, she became the first woman to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She continued publishing; she founded the literary journal Northern Lights, and also Women’s Journal, which she ran for many years. She also helped establish the Mother’s Day holiday, which she envisioned as a solemn day on which mothers from around the globe would meet to discuss world peace.
Julia Ward Howe is the subject of a new biography by literary critic Elaine Showalter. The book is called The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe, and it just came out this spring (2016).
from WRITER's ALMANAC (American Public Media: Garrison Keillor) http://writersalmanac.org