The Second Sunday of May

The origins of Mother's Day date back centuries, but the seeds to making it an official national holiday in the United States began with a poet and activist named Julia Ward Howe.

Born in 1819, Julia would grow up in New York city, one of seven children to Julia Rush Carter and Samuel Ward. Her mother, a poet, would die after giving birth to her last child and left Samuel to raise the children alone.

While Samuel was a educated and established banker on Wall Street, the absence of her mother often left the curious Julia to learn by herself, and she immersed herself in European literature in a time where very few women had the opportunity to do so.

Julia Ward Howe would be the first to propose a "mother's day". In 1870 she introduced her "Mother's Day Proclamation", which was based on her experiences as a wife and mother throughout her suppressive marriage and the atrocities she witnessed while living through the Civil War. It was her belief that women should have more social responsibility beyond tending to her husband, and she used her gift of prose to spread the message:

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."

 

 

Lemuralia

 
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.

 

 

 

Julia Ward Howe