JULIA WARD HOWE - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 03/07/1901 - HFSID 28183

JULIA WARD HOWE
Howe handwrote, signed and dated this letter in 1901 to a Mrs Dyer, updating her on "a rather serious bit of illness" and apologizing for not writing sooner, as she had lost her address book.
Autograph letter signed "Julia Ward Howe.". 4 pages, 3¾x6 (folded), 1 sheet folded, front and verso. March 7, 1901. Addressed to "Mrs Dyer". In part: "You probably know that I have had, for me, a rather serious bit of illness. I call myself about well now, but can go about very little, being obliged to avoid all fatigue and [illegible]. I still hope to receive the Wintergreens, this season. I think I may be able to offer them 'a simple lunch' late in April or early in May. Wishing that I were able to partake of your's, believe me Yours sincerely,". Postcripted in part: "Have just thought that if any one going to you in a close carriage w'd call for me, I'd come, baring a storm". Howe also mentions how she lost her address book and couldn't send this letter sooner because she couldn't remember Dyer's address. Howe (1819-1910, born in New York City), a social reformer and poet, is best known for writing the poem The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which she was inspired to write after visiting army camps in Washington, D.C. during the Civil War. Howe's poem, first published in the February 1862 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, was later set to music to the tune of the popular antislavery song John Brown's Body and became the unofficial song of the Union Army. Howe later turned her fervor against slavery into a crusade for women's rights. She was a co-founder (1868) and first President of the New England Woman's Suffrage Association, co-led (with Lucy Stone) the American Woman Suffrage Association (1869) and founded the Women's International Peace Association (1871). In 1870, Howe assisted Stone and her husband, Henry Blackwell, to establish the Woman's Journal, and served as an editor and writer for the publication for 20 years. Howe, who also wrote poems for other women's journals and founded the Boston Authors Club, was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1908). Lightly toned, especially along folds, and stained. Folded once and unfolded. Pinhole where spine of letter and fold meet. Light nicks at top and bottom of spine. Otherwise in fine condition.