Julia Ward Howe, Vol. 2: 1819-1910

by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

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466 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1915

About the author

Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards (27 February, 1850 – 14 January, 1943) was an American writer. She often published as Laura E. Richards & wrote more than 90 books including biographies, poetry, and several for children.

Her father was Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, an abolitionist and the founder of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind. She was named after his famous deaf-blind pupil Laura Bridgman. Her mother Julia Ward Howe wrote the words to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".

Reviews

[Dave Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

A life well documented

I would never have expected this biography would have spilled over into a second volume, if this biography were merely the story of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. But, as this was a comprehensive retrospect of an extremely active women lovingly assembled by her children who wrote continuously through to her 91st birthday and netted the first ever Pulitzer for History in 1917, perhaps the length is warranted.

As the member of one of America's founding families and the author a descendant of Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox guerilla fighter, The Ward Family was renowned for their participation in banking and contributions to music. Julia was so much more. Married into another prominent family of liberal Christian activist on the forefront of abolition and the global independence movement, an aspect of 19th Century Christianity which saw democracy as a Christian destiny, particularly in rejection to the Mediterranean domination by the Ottoman Empire.

Julia was one of the original founders of the American suffragette movement, founding numerous women's organizations which fought for women's education and voting rights and the right of women to preach. A voracious reader, she taught herself French, Latin, Greek and Italian so as to be able to read the works of the greatest philosophical and religious thinkers of the time in the original. Along with the Greek, Cyprus and Santo Domingo independence movements, she was an early supporter of the toppling of the Russian Empire prior to the advent of Marxism as was the wont of the Liberal Christian Movement.

The second volume focuses on the last half of her life where she stayed extremely active throughout her entire life and celebrated by the leading lights of literature and American politics until the end.

A lovingly compiled history to which I likewise claim a familial connection, though long and gushing without the slightest whiff of criticism or scandal, it is still an amazing snapshot of the period as seen through one of its most significant women of the period.