JULIA WARD HOWE - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED - HFSID 266403

JULIA WARD HOWE.
She signs an autograph letter inviting someone to hear Howe rehearse an upcoming speech.
ALS: "Julia Ward Howe", 1 page, 4¼x3¼. No place, no year, April 6th. To Mrs. Bowoker. In full: "If you can - call at 5.00 today, or at 7.30 this evening, I will read you my screed for tomorrow's Alliance meeting." The "Alliance" likely refers to the Women's Alliance of the Unitarian church, of which Howe was a member. Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), 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). Worn at edges. 3 pinhead-sized holes at upper margin. Overall, fine condition,