Mother's Day Proclamation
written by Julia Ward Howe in Boston, 1870:
*Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have heart,
whether our baptism be that of water or tears!
Say firmly:
'We will not have our great questions decided by irrelevant
agencies. Our husbands shall 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 women of one country will be
too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be
trained to injure theirs.'
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask
that a general congress of women without limits of nationality
may be appointed and held at some place deemed most
convenient and at the earliest period consider with its objects
to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the
amicable settlement of international questions, the great and
general interests of peace.*
And that good readers is where Mothers Day , got it's start in America.
A far cry from it current "Greeting Card Holiday" status.
A day late I must admit, as I am not one for "Greeting Card Holidays", and I also must admit I didn't know about this.
Wish I had. Powerful words, and a powerful ideas.
Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1819 – October 17, 1910) was a abolitionist, social activist, proponent of womens suffrage, poet and probably most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." There is a plaque in her honor at the Willard Hotel in Washington. D.C. where she wrote the prose which was later set to music.
On January 28, 1908, Howe became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. And in 1970 was inducted posthumously into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
