JULIA WARD HOWE - AUTOGRAPH NOTE SIGNED 8/1898 - HFSID 2846

JULIA WARD HOWE
Howe handwrote and signed this note to apologize for not sending an autograph that the recipient had asked for. Accompanied by a small card signed and dated in August of 1898.
Autograph note signed "J. W. H.". With black ink notation on verso in unknown hand. 1 page, 4¼x7. In full: "I am truly sorry to have/delayed so long in/sending the desired auto-/graph." Lightly toned, spotted and creased. Lower right corner is missing. Light tears in all edges. Pinholes and impression from pin near left corner. Folded once and unfolded. Fold is worn and torn at both ends. Otherwise in fine condition. Accompanied by: Small 3¼x2 card signed "Julia Ward Howe./August 1898" by Howe. Lightly toned, soiled and stained. ½-inch stain near right edge, which touches signature. Pinholes and impression from pin near left corner, which touch signature. Otherwise in fine condition. 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).