[2] Julia Colman was born in Northampton, Fulton County, New York, in the valley of the Great Sacandaga Lake, February 16, 1828.

[6] Here, in her juvenile efforts to communicate with Oneida children of the forest, Colman laid the foundation of that simplicity and directness of style for which her writings were noted, and which constituted the success of her extended literary productions.

Kidder, Wise, and Vincent, making acquaintance with editorial, publishing, and benevolent society work, which was of great value to her in her later positions.

During a portion of this time, she assisted in editing the Sunday-School Advocate, which then had a circulation of nearly 400,000, and where her articles, signed "Aunt Julia," attracted much attention.

[7] Translations from the French and German of articles for the National Magazine and letters for the Christian Advocate, the preparation of a number of small books for children on natural history, anti-slavery, and temperance, were among the literary labors of that period.

While benevolent efforts in the large Sunday-school of Greene Street Church, where for five years she was lady superintendent, constituted her outside work.

These constant and pressing demands, however, finally proved too much for her health, and she relinquished a portion of them for a series of studies in medicine and physiology.

[5] She took partial courses in different medical colleges, that she might learn their teachings about alcohol and obtain a sound physiological basis for further studies.

She spoke before local temperance societies, teachers' institutes and Methodist conferences, delivering upward of 100 lectures previous to the crusade.

That marked a new departure in the temperance work among the children, in that it was largely intellectual, the scholars being arranged in classes, reciting to teachers and reviewed by a superintendent, aided throughout by the systematized use of text-books, tracts, charts and experiments.

[8] She immediately began to study and write on the question, and, not finding sufficient access to the public through press sourced available to her, she prepared a lecture on "Alcohol our Enemy," which, after a good deal waiting, she was permitted to deliver.

It was in March, 1868, before a crowded house in the church of which she was then a member, in the presence and with the assistance of her pastor and other influential friends, the lecture was given, and was subsequently repeated many times in other places.

[9] Finding her time and interest engrossed in this topic of temperance and in the kindred subject of food and diet, she, in the autumn of 1867, severed her long connection with the Methodist Publishing House, where, however pleasant it might be, there was little chance (being a woman) of advancement.

This gave her the much-desired opportunity of studying the temperance problem upon that states, and learning the conditions which led to its advancement and success there.

During the winter and spring of 1870 and 1871, she filled nearly 100 engagements, speaking sometimes before Methodist conferences and sometimes before teachers' institutes, where she advocated temperance teaching in the day school, sounding the first notes on that topic.

She finally concluded, however, that she could reach a greater number by the pen, if exclusively devoted to this subject, and thus more effectively promote a cause in which her interest was becoming more and more engrossed.

Accounts of this school in the papers and elsewhere attracted attention, and at the National Convention of the WCTU, in Newark, New Jersey, in 1876, Colman was elected to edit one page of Our Union for the children, preparing lessons explanatory of the catechism.

But it did not provide for her personal expenses, which she supplied mostly by her contributions to the press outside of her department labors, or by editorial work like that she bestowed upon the Young People's Comrade.

[12] Catechism on Alcohol and Tobacco, published in 1885, was printed in several foreign languages, and the National Temperance Society sold over 300,000 copies of it.

With its aid, she delivered courses of illustrated lectures in Silver Spring, Maryland, Ocean Grove, New Jersey, Toronto and other places, her main object having been to simplify scientific teachings and make them attractive to persons of all ages.

[5] Colman died Sunday, January 10, 1909,[4] at her home in Brooklyn, New York, and was buried in a family plot in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.