So it turns out, Mother’s Day was a British holiday that the Puritans ditched when they hit the North American shore. They thought all holidays were sort of indulgent, of course, and since women weren’t really top of the totem pole, this one didn’t make the boat ride. This all changed in 1870 when an amazing woman named Julia Ward Howe, who also wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” used the holiday as a way to raise awareness of the atrocities of the Civil War. She called on Mother’s to come together and protest what she saw as the futility of their Sons killing the Sons of other Mothers.
She wrote the “The Mothers’ Day Proclomation of 1870″ and I’m pretty sure after you read it, you’ll be inspired but also a little annoyed that this origins story isn’t more prominent in our discussions of Mother’s Day today:
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:
“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of
charity, mercy and patience.
“We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says, “Disarm, Disarm!”
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have of ten forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war.
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions.
The great and general interests of peace.
Thanks to Jarod Jones for pointing this out - as a Women’s Studies Major, I am particularly unnerved never to have heard this narrative. What a shame that even academic institutions do not give this woman and her incredible proclamation their due.
