Julia Sampson Hurlbut was born on August 31, 1882 in South Norwalk, CT to Frank Moseley Hurlbut and Martha Newton Sampson. Twin sisters Ruth and Elsa were born on October 15, 1880 and brother Stephen on June 1890, and by 1900 the family was living in Morristown, NJ. Following Martha's death in 1907, Julia moved with her father to New York City where he worked as a bank teller.

Julia Hurlbut joined the suffrage movement around 1915 and travelled around New Jersey to advocate for granting women the right to vote. She eventually rose to become Vice President of the New Jersey branch of the Congressional Union for Woman's Suffrage, as well as the Vice President of the Women's Political Union of New Jersey, which was headquartered in Newark. Prior to New Jersey's state referendum on suffrage, Julia frequently spoke out and organized events meant to draw attention to the suffrage cause. Although the 1915 defeat of state referendums in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts, was a significant setback to the movement, activists altered their strategy away from state-by-state referendums towards calling for a federal amendment. To accomplish this, Hurlbut travelled in 1916 with other activists to states that had already granted suffrage to gather the support needed to establish the National Woman's Party. She personally spoke to enthusiastic crowds in Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, California, and Washington.

As the suffrage movement faced resistance, Hurlbut increasingly identified with its radical wing; unlike the moderate New Jersey Women's Suffrage Association (NJSWA) with its 120,000 members, the New Jersey Women's Party (NJWP) only numbered about 200 and utilized public protest and other disruptive tactics to keep their cause in the public consciousness and apply pressure to political leaders. On July 14, 1917, sixteen members of the New Jersey Woman's Party picketed the White House, having become frustrated by President Woodrow Wilson's refusal to address the issue of women's voting rights, the NJWP chose the symbolic anniversary of Bastille Day for their march. Hurlbut led a procession of three groups to the White House, carrying a banner with the French national motto, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"; joining her were Allison Turnbull Hopkins of Morristown, Beatrice R. Kincaid of Montclair, Minnie Abbot of Atlantic City, and Anne Martin of Nevada. A large crowd gathered to witness the protestors just as police arrested all three groups for "unlawful assembly".

In a hearing before Judge Mullowney on July 17, all sixteen suffragettes were sentenced to 60 days in the infamous Occaquen Workhouse in Virginia for "obstructing traffic". Conditions at the Workhouse were substandard, and the prisoners subjected to freezing temperatures, thin lice-ridden blankets, tainted food, and rat infested dormitories, in addition to abusive treatment by guards and being denied the right to speak with their attorneys. However, many of the NJWP member's husbands were prominent Democratic party donors and boosters, and upon hearing their accounts of conditions at Occaquen, President Wilson pardoned the activists' sentences after only three days. Upon her release, Hurlbut travelled around New Jersey to speak out about women's suffrage.

As America's involvement in World War I progressed, many in the suffrage movement believed it was not only the patriotic duty of women to support the war effort, but this increased public role was also important in shifting societal support for extending voting rights to women. Julia volunteered to serve with the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and was stationed in Chatillion-sur-Seine, where she supervised the officers club in town and managed the hut canteens in neighboring camps before being appointed head of the YMCA's sub-district headquarters at the American Army School.

It was while working for the YMCA in France that Julia Hurlbut met Lieutenant John Ter Bush Bissell, a graduate of Hamilton College and West Point (1917). Bissell was born on November 18, 1893 in Pittsburgh to David Shields Bissell, an 1881 graduate of M.I.T. and steel manufacturer, and Annie M. Ter Bush. The young officer was serving in the 7th Machine Gun Battalion, 2nd Division A.E.F., where he had recently defended the bridge over the Marne during the Battle of Chateau-Thierry in a 96 hour engagement with German troops. Lt. John T.B. Bissell's role in the June 1-4, 1918 battle earned him the Croix de Guerre, after which he was sent to Chattillion-sur-Seine to teach at the Machine Gun School before deploying with the 3rd Division to Germany.

John and Julia married on May 19, 1919 in Chatillion Seine, and both stayed in France through the duration of the war until returning home to the states in 1922. Following the war's end, John attended Artillery School at Fontainebleau in 1920, after which Bissell became an instructor at West Point from 1924-1928. He later attended Command and General Staff School from 1931-1933 before his appointment as Battery Commander of the 7th Field Artillery at the Madison Barracks, NY. Upon completing Army War College in 1939, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1940, Colonel in 1942, and finally Brigadier General in 1944. During World War II, Bissell served as Commander of the 112th Field Artillery Group and participated in the Battle of the Bulge, receiving the Legion of Merit.

Following her marriage to John and the passage of the 19th Amendment, Julia withdrew from the public sphere, choosing instead to adopt the duties and responsibilities of an officer's wife and travelling with the family as John was stationed to posts in Maryland, Kentucky, Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, and New York. John and Julia had one daughter, Barbara Bissell born on August 13, 1925; Barbara grew up to attend the University of Syracuse from which she graduated in 1946. The couple eventually retired to Carmel, CA where they purchased a home overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and were also longtime members of the Adirondack League Club where they owned a lodge and took frequent fishing trips to Maine and Eastern Canada.

Julia died of a cerebral stroke on October 30, 1962 in Carmel following several months of invalidism. She was buried in the Bissell family plot of the Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, PA. John Bissell lived another fourteen years, and later remarried. John T.B. Bissell died of heart failure at his home in Carmel, CA at age 82, he was buried at the West Point Cemetery in NY. For all her work to ensure that women obtained voting rights, as the wife and dependent of an officer, Julia was, ironically, ineligible to vote upon ratification of the 19th amendment. This provision was eventually abolished, but Julia Hurlbut died never having cast a single vote.

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