Julia Cutler Ward, poet and public speaker, was born in New York City into a prosperous and distinguished family. Her father was a wealthy banker. Her mother had been herself a published poet. In addition to formal schooling, Julia perfected her education at home, showing a remarkable talent for foreign languages and literatures. Thanks to her brother Sam, who had studied in Germany, young Julia had access to the writings of Goethe, Herder, Balzac, and George Sand, thereby attaining a level of instruction that few women of the antebellum United States could match.
Julia's father exercised firm control over his children's lives, and Julia early on showed signs of resistance to patriarchal authority and thirst for freedom which were to become the leitmotivs of her adult life and career. Yet
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Citation: Buonomo, Leonardo. "Julia Ward Howe". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 April 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2235, accessed 23 November 2024.]
