Intercontinental The Willard — Washington, D.C., United States
About Intercontinental The Willard
In November 1861, while staying at Willard's during the Civil War, Howe woke before dawn with the lines of the poem forming in her mind, got up, and wrote the verses down by hand before she could forget them. It was published in the Atlantic Monthly in February 1862, and Lincoln reportedly wept and called for it to be sung again when he first heard it performed. But — no specific room number is actually documented. In a letter Howe wrote decades later, in 1892, she admitted she couldn't pin down the exact room herself, telling her correspondent that if he checked the old hotel records under her husband Dr. Howe's name, he might find "the very room in which it was written," adding that the hotel had likely listed her as "Miss Howe" since the couple had booked two rooms. Today, the The Julia Ward Howe Suite sits on the east corner with Washington Monument views. It's styled after the baro…
Literary significance
The Willard has a small on-site museum in the back of the hotel with exhibits on key historic moments, and Julia Ward Howe's manuscript story is one of its centerpieces alongside MLK's speech, and there's a small on-site museum in the back of the hotel with exhibits on key historic moments, and Julia Ward Howe's manuscript story is one of its centerpieces alongside MLK's speech.
Authors
Location
1401 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004, United States