Volume 16 , Issue 16

History of Mother's Day In America

Mother's Day was originally suggested by poet and abolitionist activist Julia Ward Howe, in 1870, after witnessing the carnage of the Civil War and start of the Franco-Prussian War. Howe wrote the original Mother's Day Proclamation calling women of the world to unite for peace. It planted a seed to what would eventually become a national holiday.

It was in 1907, 37 years after the Mother's Day Proclamation was written by Julia Ward Howe, that women's rights activist Anna Jarvis began campaigning for the establishment of a nationally observed Mother's Day Holiday.

Anna Jarvis' mother, an Appalachian homemaker, had worked to develop better sanitary conditions for both sides in the Civil War, to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors after the war. Jarvis sought to honor her mother's work and vision. On 9 May 1914, four years after Howe's death, President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day as a National Holiday on the second Sunday of May. Mother's Day became an official National Holiday with the signing of a proclamation by President Woodrow Wilson on 9 May 1914.

Original Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with 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, the 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 often forsaken the plough 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 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 someplace 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.

The Women's Day Proclamation was written by Julia Ward Howe (27 May 1819-17 October 1910) in 1870. The Proclamation was linked to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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