THE REAL STORY OF MOTHERS DAY

The REAL Story of Mothers Day:

In the United States, the origins of the official holiday
go back to 1870, when Julia Ward Howe – an abolitionist best
remembered as the poet who wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic” – worked
to establish a Mother’s Peace Day. Howe dedicated the celebration to
the eradication of war, and organized festivities in Boston for years.

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 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.”


From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up
with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of
justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate
possession.


As men have often 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 learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not
of Caesar, but of God.


In the name of womanhood
and of 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.

In 1907, Anna Jarvis, of Philadelphia, began the campaign to have
Mother’s Day officially recognized, and in 1914, President Woodrow
Wilson did this, proclaiming it a national holiday and a “public
expression of our love and reverence for all mothers.”



Today’s commercialized celebration of candy, flowers, gift
certificates, and lavish meals at restaurants bears little resemblance
to Howe’s original idea. There is nothing wrong with that. But here,
for the record’s sake, is the proclamation she wrote in 1870, which
explains, in her own impassioned words, the goals of the original
holiday.