JULIA WARD HOWE
Howe handwrote and signed this letter to a Dr. Talbot, saying that she had received some books that he sent her and that she doesn't have a poem that she wrote for a celebration.
Autograph letter signed "Julia Ward Howe.". 2 pages, 4½x6¾, 1 page front and verso. Dated "April 19th" at "241 Beacon St.". Addressed to "Dr Talbot". In full: "Dear Dr Talbot, I return here - with the volumes which you kindly lent me. I have no copy of the poem which I wrote for the [illegible] celebration. Can you send me either the poem or a type written copy? Your's sincerely,". 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 and soiled. Folded in quarters and unfolded. Otherwise in fine condition.