Samuel Gridley Howe
Encyclopedia
Samuel Gridley Howe was a nineteenth century United States physician
, abolitionist, and an advocate of education for the blind
.
Howe was educated at Boston Latin School
, where he was cruelly treated, and even beaten, according to his daughter. Laura (Howe) Richards later wrote: “So far as I can remember, my father had no pleasant memories of his school days."
Boston in the early nineteenth century was a hotbed of political foment. Howe’s father was a Democrat who considered Harvard University
a den of Federalists, and refused to allow his sons to enter the university. Accordingly, in 1818, Howe's father had him enrolled at Brown University
. Most of his time there was spent engaged in practical jokes and other hi-jinx and, years later, Howe told his children that he regretted that he hadn’t more seriously applied himself to his studies. One of his classmates, a future president of Brown University, Dr. Caswell, described Howe in this way, “He showed mental capabilities which would naturally fit him for fine scholarship. His mind was quick, versatile, and inventive. I do not think he was deficient in logical power, but the severer studies did not seem to be congenial to him.” After graduating from Brown in 1821, Howe attended Harvard Medical School
, taking his degree
in 1824.
, by the example of his idol Lord Byron, and fleeing the memory of an unhappy love affair, Howe sailed for Greece
, where he joined the Greek army as a surgeon
.
In Greece his services were not confined to the duties of a surgeon, but were of a more military nature, and his bravery, enthusiasm, and ability as a commander, as well as his humanity, won for Howe the title "the Lafayette of the Greek Revolution." Howe returned to America in 1827, to raise funds and supplies to help alleviate the famine and suffering in Greece. Howe's fervid appeals enabled him to collect about $60,000 which he spent on provisions, clothing, and the establishment of a relief depot for refugees near Aegina
. He later formed another colony for exiles on the Isthmus of Corinth
. Afterwards, Howe wrote an account of the revolt, Historical Sketch of the Greek Revolution, which was published in 1828.
After leaving Greece, Howe continued his medical studies in Paris
, where his enthusiasm for a republican
form of government led him to take part in the July Revolution
.
In 1831 he returned to America. Here a new object of interest engaged him. Through his friend Dr. John Dix Fisher
, a Boston physician who had started a movement there as early as 1826 for establishing a school for the blind, he had learned of a similar school founded in Paris
by Valentin Haüy
. It was proposed to Howe by a committee organized by Fisher that he should direct the establishment of a New England Asylum for the Blind at Boston. He took up the project with characteristic ardor, and set out at once for Europe to investigate the problem. There he was temporarily diverted from his task by becoming mixed up with the Polish
revolt. He became chairman of the American-Polish Committee at Paris, organized by himself, J. Fenimore Cooper
, S. F. B. Morse
, and several other Americans living in the city, for the purpose of giving relief to the Polish political refugees who had crossed over the Prussian border into Prussia. Dr. Howe undertook to distribute the supplies and funds personally and while in Berlin
he was arrested and imprisoned, but was released after five weeks through the intervention of the American minister at Paris.
Returning to Boston in July 1832, he began receiving a few blind children at his father’s house in Pleasant Street, and thus sowed the seed which grew into the famous Perkins Institution
. In January 1833 the funds available were all spent, but so much progress had been shown that the legislature approved funding, later increased to $30,000 a year, to the institution on condition that it should educate gratuitously twenty poor blind from the state; money was also contributed from Salem and Boston. Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins
, a prominent Boston trader in slaves, furs, and opium, then presented his mansion and grounds in Pearl Street for the school to be held there in perpetuity. This building being later found unsuitable, Colonel Perkins consented to its sale, and in 1839 the institution was moved to the former Mount Washington House Hotel in South Boston. It was henceforth known as the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum (or, since 1877, School for the Blind.)
Howe was director, and the life and soul of the school; he opened a printing-office and organized a fund for printing for the blind — the first done in America; and he was unwearied in calling public attention to tile work. The Institution, through him, became one of the intellectual centres of American philanthropy, and by degrees obtained more and more financial support. In 1837, Howe brought to the school Laura Bridgman
, a young deaf-blind girl who later became a teacher at the school. She became famous as the first known deaf-blind person to be successfully educated in America.
Dr. Howe himself was the originator of many improvements in method as well as in the process of printing books in Braille
. Besides acting as superintendent of the Perkins Institution to the end of his life, he was instrumental in establishing a large number of institutions of a similar character throughout the country.
, the daughter of wealthy New York banker Samuel Ward and Julia Rush Cutler. Julia was an ardent supporter of abolition and was later active in the cause of Woman's Suffrage
. She composed the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
They had a passionate and stormy marriage. Julia wrote in her diary of Dr. Howe (whom she referred to as "Chev"):
At one point Samuel requested a legal separation, but Julia refused. Many of their arguments centered on Julia’s desire to have a career apart from motherhood. While Dr. Howe was in many ways quite progressive by the standards of the day, he did not support the idea of married women having any work other than that of wife and mother, and he firmly believed that Julia's proper place was in the home.
The couple had six children: Julia Romana Howe (1844–1886) married Michael Anagnos, a Greek scholar who succeeded Dr. Howe as director of the Perkins Institute; Florence Marion Howe (1845–1922), an author, she wrote a well-known treatise on manners and was married to lawyer David Prescott Hall; Henry Marion Howe (1848–1922), a metallurgist who lived in New York; Laura Elizabeth Howe
(1850–1943), a Pulitzer prize
-winning author, she was married to Henry Richards and lived in Maine; Maud Howe
(1855–1948), a Pulitzer prize
-winning author, she was married to an English muralist and illustrator, John Elliott
; Samuel Gridley Howe, Jr. (1858–1863).
Laura and Florence were closest to their father and defended his opposition to Julia's activities outside the home. Ironically, Florence would later take up her mother's mantle as a committed suffragette, making public speeches on the subject and authoring the book Julia Ward Howe and the Woman Suffrage Movement (1913).
", he was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress
against Robert C. Winthrop
. He was one of the founders of an antislavery newspaper, the Boston Daily Commonwealth, which he edited (1851–1853) with the assistance of his wife, Julia Ward Howe
. He was a prominent member of the Kansas Committee
in Massachusetts, and with Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
, George Luther Stearns
, Theodore Parker
, and Gerrit Smith
, was interested in the plans of John Brown
. Although he disapproved of the attack upon Harper's Ferry, Howe nevertheless funded John Brown's
work as a member of the Secret Six
. After Brown's arrest, Howe temporarily fled to Canada to escape prosecution.
According to Samuel Howe’s daughter, Florence Hall, the Howe’s South Boston home was a stop on the Underground Railroad
. This is uncertain, but it is known that Dr. Howe vehemently opposed the Fugitive Slave Law. Two incidents clearly demonstrate this. The first occurred in 1850, when Dr. Howe along with Thomas Wentworth Higginson
, Theodore Parker
and other abolitionists, stormed Faneuil Hall
in order to try to free a captured escaped slave, Anthony Burns. Burns was going to be sent back to his slave owner in Virginia in accordance with the Fugitive Slave Law. The abolitionists hoped to rescue Burns from that fate. Howe declared outside the hall that “No man’s freedom is safe until all men are free,” and shortly afterward the abolitionists stormed the hall, breaking through the door with a battering ram. A deputy was accidentally shot in the ensuing fracas. Federal Troops finally put an end to the attempted raid and Burns was returned to Virginia. The men didn’t abandon Burns, however, and within in a year of Burns' capture they had raised enough money to purchase Burns’ freedom from his slave owner.
In another violation of the Fugitive Slave Law, in October 1854, with the help of Capt. Austin Bearse and the Captain’s brother, Dr. Howe rescued an escaped slave who had come into Boston Harbor from Jacksonville, FL, as a stowaway aboard the brig Cameo. The Boston Vigilance Committee
then helped the man evade slave-catchers and reach freedom.
In 1863, Dr. Howe returned to Canada in order to interview former slaves who had settled there after fleeing on the Underground Railroad. Life in Canada wasn’t free from the bigotry that Freedmen
and women experienced in the Northern Eastern United States. However, Howe wrote that overall their lives had improved, as they were now free to earn a living, marry, attend school and church out of the reach of slave-catchers. An account of his interviews and experiences were published in 1864, The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West.
Howe was one of the directors of the Sanitary Commission
. The goal of the Sanitary Commission was to improve hygiene standards and prevent outbreaks of disease at Union Camps, which were breeding grounds for illnesses like dysentery
, typhoid and malaria
.
At the close of the Civil War, Dr. Howe entered into the work of the Freedmen's Bureau
. His work with the Freemen’s Bureau served as an extension of his work as an abolitionist. It was the job of the Freedmen’s Bureau to help house, feed, clothe, educate and provide medical care to newly freed slaves in the South after the Civil War. In some instances it would also attempt to aid Freedmen, as the emancipated slaves were then called, locate and reunite with relatives who had either fled north or who had been sold away during slavery.
, also brought about the establishment of the Massachusetts School for Idiotic Children (later renamed the Walter E. Fernald State School
), the Western Hemisphere’s oldest publicly-funded institution serving the mentally disabled. He founded the school in 1848 with a $2,500 appropriation from the Massachusetts Legislature. Idiot was at that time considered a polite term for individuals with mental and intellectual disabilities. Dr. Howe was successful in his attempt to educate the mentally disabled, but this led to other problems, as many then argued that the disabled did so well in schools like Dr. Howe's that they should remain permanently incarcerated there. Dr. Howe was opposed to this, arguing that the mentally disabled had rights and that segregating them from the rest of society would be detrimental.
In 1866, Howe gave the keynote address at the opening of the New York State Institution for the Blind at Batavia, NY, and shocked the audience by warning about the dangers of segregation based on disability:
"We should be cautious about establishing such artificial communities...for any children and youth; but more especially should we avoid them for those who have natural infirmity...Such persons spring up sporadically in the community, and they should be kept diffused among sound and normal persons...Surround insane and excitable persons with sane people and ordinary influences; vicious children with virtuous people and virtuous influences; blind children with those who see; mute children with those who speak; and the like..."
He was the originator of the State Board of Charities of Massachusetts, in 1863, the first board of the sort in America, and was its chairman from that time until 1874.
He made a last trip to Greece in 1866, to carry relief to the Cretan
refugees during the Cretan Revolution.
Samuel Howe remained active and politically involved until the end of his life.
In 1865, Dr. Howe openly advocated a progressive tax system, which he referred to as a "sliding scale of taxation proportionate to income." He stated that the wealthy would resist this, but explained that America could not become a truly just society while the gap between rich and poor remained so cavernous. Emancipating the slaves and charity work alone were not enough, he insisted, to bridge the inequities, "so long as the labors and drudgery of the world is thrown actively upon one class, while another class is entirely exempt from it. There is a radical injustice in it. And injustice in society is like a rotten timber in the foundation of a house."
In 1870 he was a member of the commission sent by President Grant
to inquire into the practicability of the annexation of Santo Domingo
. President Grant wished to annex the island. He was opposed in this effort by Dr. Howe’s old friend and fellow abolitionist, Sen.Charles Sumner
. In the end, the committee sided with Sumner in opposition to the proposed annexation. Grant was so enraged at having his plans thwarted that he engineered to have Sumner removed from his chairmanship as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Samuel Gridley Howe died January 9, 1876. He is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery
.
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, abolitionist, and an advocate of education for the blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
.
Early life and education
Howe was born on Pearl Street in Boston, Massachusetts on November 10, 1801. His father, Joseph Neals Howe, was a ship-owner and cordage manufacturer. His mother, Patty Gridley, was considered to be one of the most beautiful women of her day.Howe was educated at Boston Latin School
Boston Latin School
The Boston Latin School is a public exam school founded on April 23, 1635, in Boston, Massachusetts. It is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States....
, where he was cruelly treated, and even beaten, according to his daughter. Laura (Howe) Richards later wrote: “So far as I can remember, my father had no pleasant memories of his school days."
Boston in the early nineteenth century was a hotbed of political foment. Howe’s father was a Democrat who considered Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
a den of Federalists, and refused to allow his sons to enter the university. Accordingly, in 1818, Howe's father had him enrolled at Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
. Most of his time there was spent engaged in practical jokes and other hi-jinx and, years later, Howe told his children that he regretted that he hadn’t more seriously applied himself to his studies. One of his classmates, a future president of Brown University, Dr. Caswell, described Howe in this way, “He showed mental capabilities which would naturally fit him for fine scholarship. His mind was quick, versatile, and inventive. I do not think he was deficient in logical power, but the severer studies did not seem to be congenial to him.” After graduating from Brown in 1821, Howe attended Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
, taking his degree
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
in 1824.
Greek Revolution
Howe didn't remain in Massachusetts for long after graduating. In 1824, shortly after Howe was certified to practice medicine, fired by enthusiasm for the Greek RevolutionGreek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
, by the example of his idol Lord Byron, and fleeing the memory of an unhappy love affair, Howe sailed for Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, where he joined the Greek army as a surgeon
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
.
In Greece his services were not confined to the duties of a surgeon, but were of a more military nature, and his bravery, enthusiasm, and ability as a commander, as well as his humanity, won for Howe the title "the Lafayette of the Greek Revolution." Howe returned to America in 1827, to raise funds and supplies to help alleviate the famine and suffering in Greece. Howe's fervid appeals enabled him to collect about $60,000 which he spent on provisions, clothing, and the establishment of a relief depot for refugees near Aegina
Aegina
Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...
. He later formed another colony for exiles on the Isthmus of Corinth
Corinth
Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
. Afterwards, Howe wrote an account of the revolt, Historical Sketch of the Greek Revolution, which was published in 1828.
After leaving Greece, Howe continued his medical studies in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where his enthusiasm for a republican
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
form of government led him to take part in the July Revolution
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...
.
Work for the blind
John Dix Fisher
John Dix Fisher, , physician and founder of Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts, was born in Needham, Massachusetts, the youngest of the six sons of Aaron and Lucy Fisher. The Fisher family was descended from Anthony Fisher, one of the signers of the Dedham Covenant in 1636...
, a Boston physician who had started a movement there as early as 1826 for establishing a school for the blind, he had learned of a similar school founded in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
by Valentin Haüy
Valentin Haüy
Valentin Haüy - 19 March 1822 in Paris) was the founder, in 1784, of the first school for the blind, the Royal Institution for the Young Blind in Paris . In 1819, Louis Braille entered this school....
. It was proposed to Howe by a committee organized by Fisher that he should direct the establishment of a New England Asylum for the Blind at Boston. He took up the project with characteristic ardor, and set out at once for Europe to investigate the problem. There he was temporarily diverted from his task by becoming mixed up with the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
revolt. He became chairman of the American-Polish Committee at Paris, organized by himself, J. Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...
, S. F. B. Morse
Samuel F. B. Morse
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was an American contributor to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs, co-inventor of the Morse code, and an accomplished painter.-Birth and education:...
, and several other Americans living in the city, for the purpose of giving relief to the Polish political refugees who had crossed over the Prussian border into Prussia. Dr. Howe undertook to distribute the supplies and funds personally and while in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
he was arrested and imprisoned, but was released after five weeks through the intervention of the American minister at Paris.
Returning to Boston in July 1832, he began receiving a few blind children at his father’s house in Pleasant Street, and thus sowed the seed which grew into the famous Perkins Institution
Perkins School for the Blind
Perkins School for the Blind, located in Watertown, Massachusetts, is the oldest schools for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.-History:...
. In January 1833 the funds available were all spent, but so much progress had been shown that the legislature approved funding, later increased to $30,000 a year, to the institution on condition that it should educate gratuitously twenty poor blind from the state; money was also contributed from Salem and Boston. Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins
Thomas Handasyd Perkins
Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins, or T. H. Perkins was a wealthy Boston merchant and an archetypical Boston Brahmin. Starting with bequests from his grandfather and father-in-law, he amassed a huge fortune...
, a prominent Boston trader in slaves, furs, and opium, then presented his mansion and grounds in Pearl Street for the school to be held there in perpetuity. This building being later found unsuitable, Colonel Perkins consented to its sale, and in 1839 the institution was moved to the former Mount Washington House Hotel in South Boston. It was henceforth known as the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum (or, since 1877, School for the Blind.)
Howe was director, and the life and soul of the school; he opened a printing-office and organized a fund for printing for the blind — the first done in America; and he was unwearied in calling public attention to tile work. The Institution, through him, became one of the intellectual centres of American philanthropy, and by degrees obtained more and more financial support. In 1837, Howe brought to the school Laura Bridgman
Laura Bridgman
Laura Dewey Lynn Bridgman is known as the first deaf-blind American child to gain a significant education in the English language, fifty years before the more famous Helen Keller...
, a young deaf-blind girl who later became a teacher at the school. She became famous as the first known deaf-blind person to be successfully educated in America.
Dr. Howe himself was the originator of many improvements in method as well as in the process of printing books in Braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
. Besides acting as superintendent of the Perkins Institution to the end of his life, he was instrumental in establishing a large number of institutions of a similar character throughout the country.
Marriage and family
On 23 April 1843 he married Julia WardJulia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet, most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".-Biography:...
, the daughter of wealthy New York banker Samuel Ward and Julia Rush Cutler. Julia was an ardent supporter of abolition and was later active in the cause of Woman's Suffrage
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...
. She composed the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
They had a passionate and stormy marriage. Julia wrote in her diary of Dr. Howe (whom she referred to as "Chev"):
- Chev is one of the characters based upon opposition. While I always seem to work for an unseen friend, he always sees an armed adversary and nerves himself accordingly. So all our lives turn on what I may call moral or personal fiction...
At one point Samuel requested a legal separation, but Julia refused. Many of their arguments centered on Julia’s desire to have a career apart from motherhood. While Dr. Howe was in many ways quite progressive by the standards of the day, he did not support the idea of married women having any work other than that of wife and mother, and he firmly believed that Julia's proper place was in the home.
The couple had six children: Julia Romana Howe (1844–1886) married Michael Anagnos, a Greek scholar who succeeded Dr. Howe as director of the Perkins Institute; Florence Marion Howe (1845–1922), an author, she wrote a well-known treatise on manners and was married to lawyer David Prescott Hall; Henry Marion Howe (1848–1922), a metallurgist who lived in New York; Laura Elizabeth Howe
Laura E. Richards
Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a high-profile family. During her life, she wrote over 90 books, including children's, biographies, poetry, and others. A well-known children's poem for which she is noted is the literary nonsense verse Eletelephony.Her father...
(1850–1943), a Pulitzer prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning author, she was married to Henry Richards and lived in Maine; Maud Howe
Maud Howe Elliott
Maud Howe Elliott was an American writer, most notable for her Pulitzer prize-winning collaboration with her sister, Laura E. Richards, on their mother's biography The Life of Julia Ward Howe...
(1855–1948), a Pulitzer prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning author, she was married to an English muralist and illustrator, John Elliott
John Elliott (artist)
John Elliott was an artist, illustrator, and muralist. Born in Lincolnshire, England, he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian under Carolus-Duran...
; Samuel Gridley Howe, Jr. (1858–1863).
Laura and Florence were closest to their father and defended his opposition to Julia's activities outside the home. Ironically, Florence would later take up her mother's mantle as a committed suffragette, making public speeches on the subject and authoring the book Julia Ward Howe and the Woman Suffrage Movement (1913).
Antislavery activities
He entered publicly into the antislavery struggle for the first time in 1846, when as a "Conscience WhigConscience Whigs
The "Conscience" Whigs were a faction of the Whig Party in the state of Massachusetts noted for their moral opposition to slavery. They were noted as opponents of the more conservative "Cotton" Whigs who dominated the state party, led by such figures as Edward Everett, Robert C...
", he was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
against Robert C. Winthrop
Robert Charles Winthrop
Robert Charles Winthrop was an American lawyer and philanthropist and one time Speaker of the United States House of Representatives....
. He was one of the founders of an antislavery newspaper, the Boston Daily Commonwealth, which he edited (1851–1853) with the assistance of his wife, Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet, most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".-Biography:...
. He was a prominent member of the Kansas Committee
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War, was a series of violent events, involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the western frontier towns of the U.S. state of Missouri roughly between 1854 and 1858...
in Massachusetts, and with Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
Franklin Benjamin Sanborn was an American journalist, author, and reformer. Sanborn was a social scientist, and a memorialist of American transcendentalism who wrote early biographies of many of the movement's key figures...
, George Luther Stearns
George Luther Stearns
George Luther Stearns was an American industrialist and merchant, as well as a noted recruiter of blacks for the Union Army during the American Civil War.-Biography:...
, Theodore Parker
Theodore Parker
Theodore Parker was an American Transcendentalist and reforming minister of the Unitarian church...
, and Gerrit Smith
Gerrit Smith
Gerrit Smith was a leading United States social reformer, abolitionist, politician, and philanthropist...
, was interested in the plans of John Brown
John Brown (abolitionist)
John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
. Although he disapproved of the attack upon Harper's Ferry, Howe nevertheless funded John Brown's
John Brown (abolitionist)
John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
work as a member of the Secret Six
Secret Six
The Secret Six, or the Secret Committee of Six, were six wealthy and influential men who secretly funded the American abolitionist, John Brown. They were Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Samuel Gridley Howe, Theodore Parker, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Gerrit Smith, and George Luther Stearns...
. After Brown's arrest, Howe temporarily fled to Canada to escape prosecution.
According to Samuel Howe’s daughter, Florence Hall, the Howe’s South Boston home was a stop on the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
. This is uncertain, but it is known that Dr. Howe vehemently opposed the Fugitive Slave Law. Two incidents clearly demonstrate this. The first occurred in 1850, when Dr. Howe along with Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism...
, Theodore Parker
Theodore Parker
Theodore Parker was an American Transcendentalist and reforming minister of the Unitarian church...
and other abolitionists, stormed Faneuil Hall
Faneuil Hall
Faneuil Hall , located near the waterfront and today's Government Center, in Boston, Massachusetts, has been a marketplace and a meeting hall since 1742. It was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain, and is now part of...
in order to try to free a captured escaped slave, Anthony Burns. Burns was going to be sent back to his slave owner in Virginia in accordance with the Fugitive Slave Law. The abolitionists hoped to rescue Burns from that fate. Howe declared outside the hall that “No man’s freedom is safe until all men are free,” and shortly afterward the abolitionists stormed the hall, breaking through the door with a battering ram. A deputy was accidentally shot in the ensuing fracas. Federal Troops finally put an end to the attempted raid and Burns was returned to Virginia. The men didn’t abandon Burns, however, and within in a year of Burns' capture they had raised enough money to purchase Burns’ freedom from his slave owner.
In another violation of the Fugitive Slave Law, in October 1854, with the help of Capt. Austin Bearse and the Captain’s brother, Dr. Howe rescued an escaped slave who had come into Boston Harbor from Jacksonville, FL, as a stowaway aboard the brig Cameo. The Boston Vigilance Committee
Boston Vigilance Committee
Boston Vigilance Committee was an abolitionist organization formed in Boston, Massachusetts on June 4, 1841 at the Marlboro Chapel, Hall No. 3....
then helped the man evade slave-catchers and reach freedom.
In 1863, Dr. Howe returned to Canada in order to interview former slaves who had settled there after fleeing on the Underground Railroad. Life in Canada wasn’t free from the bigotry that Freedmen
Freedman
A freedman is a former slave who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves became freedmen either by manumission or emancipation ....
and women experienced in the Northern Eastern United States. However, Howe wrote that overall their lives had improved, as they were now free to earn a living, marry, attend school and church out of the reach of slave-catchers. An account of his interviews and experiences were published in 1864, The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West.
Civil War and Reconstruction
During the Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
Howe was one of the directors of the Sanitary Commission
United States Sanitary Commission
The United States Sanitary Commission was a private relief agency created by federal legislation on June 18, 1861, to support sick and wounded soldiers of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War. It operated across the North, raised its own funds, and enlisted thousands of volunteers...
. The goal of the Sanitary Commission was to improve hygiene standards and prevent outbreaks of disease at Union Camps, which were breeding grounds for illnesses like dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
, typhoid and malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
.
At the close of the Civil War, Dr. Howe entered into the work of the Freedmen's Bureau
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands
The Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. federal government agency that aided distressed freedmen in 1865–1869, during the Reconstruction era of the United States....
. His work with the Freemen’s Bureau served as an extension of his work as an abolitionist. It was the job of the Freedmen’s Bureau to help house, feed, clothe, educate and provide medical care to newly freed slaves in the South after the Civil War. In some instances it would also attempt to aid Freedmen, as the emancipated slaves were then called, locate and reunite with relatives who had either fled north or who had been sold away during slavery.
Philanthropic activities
Dr. Howe, working with Dorothea DixDorothea Dix
Dorothea Lynde Dix was an American activist on behalf of the indigent insane who, through a vigorous program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums...
, also brought about the establishment of the Massachusetts School for Idiotic Children (later renamed the Walter E. Fernald State School
Walter E. Fernald State School
The Walter E. Fernald State School, now the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center, located in Waltham, Massachusetts, is the Western hemisphere's oldest publicly funded institution serving people with developmental disabilities. Originally a Victorian sanatorium, it became a "poster child" for...
), the Western Hemisphere’s oldest publicly-funded institution serving the mentally disabled. He founded the school in 1848 with a $2,500 appropriation from the Massachusetts Legislature. Idiot was at that time considered a polite term for individuals with mental and intellectual disabilities. Dr. Howe was successful in his attempt to educate the mentally disabled, but this led to other problems, as many then argued that the disabled did so well in schools like Dr. Howe's that they should remain permanently incarcerated there. Dr. Howe was opposed to this, arguing that the mentally disabled had rights and that segregating them from the rest of society would be detrimental.
In 1866, Howe gave the keynote address at the opening of the New York State Institution for the Blind at Batavia, NY, and shocked the audience by warning about the dangers of segregation based on disability:
"We should be cautious about establishing such artificial communities...for any children and youth; but more especially should we avoid them for those who have natural infirmity...Such persons spring up sporadically in the community, and they should be kept diffused among sound and normal persons...Surround insane and excitable persons with sane people and ordinary influences; vicious children with virtuous people and virtuous influences; blind children with those who see; mute children with those who speak; and the like..."
He was the originator of the State Board of Charities of Massachusetts, in 1863, the first board of the sort in America, and was its chairman from that time until 1874.
He made a last trip to Greece in 1866, to carry relief to the Cretan
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
refugees during the Cretan Revolution.
Final years and death
In 1865, Dr. Howe openly advocated a progressive tax system, which he referred to as a "sliding scale of taxation proportionate to income." He stated that the wealthy would resist this, but explained that America could not become a truly just society while the gap between rich and poor remained so cavernous. Emancipating the slaves and charity work alone were not enough, he insisted, to bridge the inequities, "so long as the labors and drudgery of the world is thrown actively upon one class, while another class is entirely exempt from it. There is a radical injustice in it. And injustice in society is like a rotten timber in the foundation of a house."
In 1870 he was a member of the commission sent by President Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
to inquire into the practicability of the annexation of Santo Domingo
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
. President Grant wished to annex the island. He was opposed in this effort by Dr. Howe’s old friend and fellow abolitionist, Sen.Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction,...
. In the end, the committee sided with Sumner in opposition to the proposed annexation. Grant was so enraged at having his plans thwarted that he engineered to have Sumner removed from his chairmanship as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Samuel Gridley Howe died January 9, 1876. He is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", with classical monuments set in a rolling landscaped terrain...
.
Books
- F. B. SanbornFranklin Benjamin SanbornFranklin Benjamin Sanborn was an American journalist, author, and reformer. Sanborn was a social scientist, and a memorialist of American transcendentalism who wrote early biographies of many of the movement's key figures...
, Dr. S. G. Howe, American Philanthropist (Neww York, 1891) - L. E. RichardsLaura E. RichardsLaura Elizabeth Howe Richards was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a high-profile family. During her life, she wrote over 90 books, including children's, biographies, poetry, and others. A well-known children's poem for which she is noted is the literary nonsense verse Eletelephony.Her father...
(editor), Letters and Journals (two volumes, Boston 1906-09) - L. E. RichardsLaura E. RichardsLaura Elizabeth Howe Richards was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a high-profile family. During her life, she wrote over 90 books, including children's, biographies, poetry, and others. A well-known children's poem for which she is noted is the literary nonsense verse Eletelephony.Her father...
, Two Noble Lives (Boston, 1911) - L. E. RichardsLaura E. RichardsLaura Elizabeth Howe Richards was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a high-profile family. During her life, she wrote over 90 books, including children's, biographies, poetry, and others. A well-known children's poem for which she is noted is the literary nonsense verse Eletelephony.Her father...
, Samuel Gridley Howe (Boston, 1935) - Harold Schwartz, Samuel Gridley Howe, Social Reformer, 1801-1876 (Harvard Univ. Press, 1956)
- Milton MeltzerMilton MeltzerMilton Meltzer was an American historian and author best known for his history nonfiction books on Jewish, African-American and American history...
, A light in the dark: the life of Samuel Gridley Howe (Crowell, 1964)