Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: Allen C. Browne
Taken: February 16, 2015
Caption: Julia Ward Howe
Additional Description: This portrait begun by John Elliot in 1910 and finished by William H. Cotton c. 1925 hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC.

“For years Julia Ward Howe yearned to take a more active part in public affairs. But her husband, the noted Boston reformer Samuel Gridley Howe, insisted that she confine herself to running their home. In 1861, however, she unwittingly transformed her-self into a minor celebrity by writing the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic.’ Composed during a visit to Washington, this fiercely martial poem, dedicated to the Union cause, was set to the music of ‘John Brown's Body.’ By 1865 it had become the North's unofficial wartime anthem.

After the Civil War, Howe finally broke the constraints imposed by her husband to become one of the best-loved figures in the growing women's suffrage movement. This portrait was begun in Howe's last years by her son-in-law, who attempted to portray her as she might have looked years earlier, writing the ‘Battle Hymn.’” — National Portrait Gallery
Submitted: April 23, 2015, by Allen C. Browne of Silver Spring, Maryland.
Database Locator Identification Number: p306173
File Size: 0.906 Megabytes

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