EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; JULIA WARD HOWE P/52

                                                                                                                                                                                            

In this post I will focus on a woman named Julia Ward Howe. She was born in 1861. For years Julia yearned to take a more active part in public affairs but her husband, noted Boston reformer Samuel Gridly Howe, insisted that she restrict herself to running their home.

During the Civil War in 1861, Julia unwittingly became a minor celebrity by writing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." This poem, set to the music of "John Brown's Body," became the North's unofficial wartime anthem.

After the war, Julia broke the contraints imposed by her husband. She became a beloved figure in the growing women's suffrage movement, all the while raising six children. 

In 1870, she founded "Woman's Journal," a weekly suffragist magazine that ran until 1931. Then she was elected president of the Association of the Advancement of Women.