Mother's Day for Peace

I wonder how many of us know or remember that Mother’s Day was originally conceived as a call for all women to unite against the war.

Social activist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), best known for writing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, conceived of a Mother’s Day for Peace after witnessing up close the devastation the Civil War had caused: from the death and maiming of the soldiers to the emotional and financial toll it exacted from their widows and orphans.

In 1870, she wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation, a moving elegy to all women and the important role they play in securing a lasting peace. An excerpt:

"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 our 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.

Though she did not succeed in having Mother’s Day for Peace officially recognized, it was eventually the basis of Mother’s Day as we know today.

As we show appreciation for our mothers by buying them flowers and gifts and treating them to dinner, I hope we can all take a moment on this day and every day to remember, like Julia Ward Howe wanted, that peace and equality are goals worth standing up for.

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