Exploration

Jacquelyn Sinowitz

Reagan Smith

AMH 2020

July 6, 2016

The Historical Importance of Julia Ward Howe

Imagine being treated as an inferior, not having suffrage rights, or not being able to do the most simple, innate thing like using the bathroom when you need to. These are all things that Julia Ward Howe fought to obliterate. Howe was a Republican civil rights activist for both women’s and Afro-American rights. She is most widely known for writing the lyrics of the song called “Battle Hymn of the Republic”. This song was, and still is, very well known throughout North America, as well as in many other places of the world that are well versed in history. Not only did she lobby so women right and African American rights, she also publicly urged prison reform and general international peace. She lived from 1819-1910, considering the time period she was of the first women to publicly advocate a change for the better. In the victorian era it was not uncommon for women to digress from the politics and focus on jobs that men thought a women should do, like tending to the house and raising the children. Not only was it abnormal for women to speak out, it was abnormal for anyone to question society. She was a pioneer and a catalyst for the women rights moment which continues to exist today over 100 years later; due to this she is extremely historically important, as she left a large impact on society.

Her life began in 1819 on May 27th in New York, New York. Although her mother passed while she was young, she had her father until he died when she was 24. Her father was extremely conservative and thus she had a limited social life. She was homeschooled all her life, never receiving a formal education . When her father died she moved to Boston. 

Moving here was quite a big event in her life because here she met her husband Samuel Gridley Howe whom was a teacher for the blind, formerly a war doctor.  They had six children though she was not happy in her marriage because she was not satisfied with an average stay-at-home life style, especially since her husband was misogynistic in terms of what kind of role a women should play. Even so, she worked as a writer from home. 

Howe’s first novel was named “The Hermaphrodite” which was written in the 1840s. This novel did not get published for some time. She also wrote “Passion Flowers” (1854) which was her first published collection of poetry even though it was anonymous at the time. Other works include but are not limited to: “Words for the Hour” (1857), the play “Leonora, or the World’s Own” (1857). None of these were as patricianly noteworthy as the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”. However she did aid in editing “The Commonwealth”, an abolitionist paper, with her husband.

There are a couple theories as to how Howe came up with the “Battle Hymn of the republic”. The ultimate reason why she wrote it was because she believed it would help the union win the Civil War as well and break the bonds placed on African Americans of the time. However some specific theories are as follows, Howe had gone to a party in which a few people were singing "John Brown's Body”. This supposedly beaconed her to write the poem when she arrived home. People likely believe this because it was put to the same beat. It is unknown which is the most accurate, though a more probable situation is that Howe visited an army near Washington DC in 1862, during the Civil War. This which commanded her soul to write the verse, being inspired by the dedication. She references god (him) being on the Union’s side ‘circling camps’. 

 “I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps 

  They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;”

The full hymn was published in a magazine called Atlantic Monthly, She was only paid $4. 

It is said though not confirmed that President Lincoln came to tears when the song was played for him. Being largely about god the poem talks of the lord allowing for the union to be victorious. Howe became extremely well known throughout America considering The Union army eventually used the hymn as its unofficial song. They song it often, it was played across the whole country, whether in fondness or distaste. 

Julia Howe’s husband died in 1876, however she was not that sad about it. In fact she even wrote in her diary “Start my new life today” the day after her husbands death. This was not just something she had put on her to-do list for hopes of accomplishing the task, she immediately changed her life. For the rest of her life she did as she pleased and how god permitted. She could finally control her own finances, and her influence on the world. She answered to no one except herself and God. She would sail the world promoting Peace, Prison and Education Reform, and especially Women’s Rights as a speaker, a lecturer, and general person of influence.  She was a celebrity of the time and used all her time to fill the gap between what is being done currently and what needs to change. 

The year of 1868 Howe was so fed up with the expectations of a women in the victorian era and the outrageous inequality that was so very evidently present. She felt the need to begin devoting most of her days to the women's suffrage movement without her husband knowing. In fact she even founded the New England Woman's Club and New England Woman's Suffrage Association. Other feminists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted as extensive change to women rights. For example they would not allow men to be in their association. However Howe led a group of less extreme feminists. The two groups could not coincide their ideals of what the women should be treated like or what rights they should have. Howe as well as her alliances established the American Woman's Suffrage Association. Stanton and Anthony decided to form the National Woman Suffrage Association. By 1890, the more extreme group decided to merge with Howe’s group. 

In conclusion, Julia Ward Howe was one of the biggest influencers of the women rights movement of her time, if not in all recorded U.S. history. This is a bold statement though it is ver accurate because the whole 91 years she lived women had no rights at all. Women could not vote at all, and although she unfortunately died 10 years before women gained this right in 1920, she sparked the movement. She was the one of the few influential women of her time. Disregarding all she did for women’s rights, she even stood for African American rights. Her hymn boosted the morale of so many Union soldiers that it can be said that she helped aid them in uniting for the cause as well as believing in what they were doing even though it may have seemed so immoral.