Samuel Gridley Howe: Social Reformer (Harvard Historical Studies)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.79 (693 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0674787218 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 356 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-01-31 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
This readable book is the first authoritative biography of Samuel Gridley Howe, the remarkable Bostonian who actively participated in most of the major reform movements of the nineteenth century. Schwartz traces Howe's public career, but he also describes Howe's childhood, his choice of a medical career, his membership--together with Longfellow, Cornelius Felton, Charles Sumner, and George Hillard--in the social circle called the Five of Clubs, and his marriage to Julia Ward. Here too is the story of a marriage: Julia Ward Howe led but half a life with a husband whose ideas about a woman's place did not stretch to include her talents. After 1845, he spent most of his energies, political and literary, in abolitionist activities. There he developed techniques for teaching the deaf-blind, the first man in history to succeed in this field. Schwartz is thus able to cast new light on the personalities of the Bostonian reformers: harsh, sanctimonious, or unfair as they might appear to their opponents, they were, Schwartz reminds us, basically earnest men who, by acting on their faith in progress and their se