NOTE: Mother's Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a
protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their sons.
Here is the original Mother's Day Proclamation from 1870 followed by
a little herstory.

MOTHER'S DAY PROCLAMATION
Julia Ward Howe - 1870

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

Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered 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 voice of a 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.
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 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.

----

MOTHER'S DAY FOR PEACE
by Ruth Rosen.

(Honor Mother with Rallies in the Streets. The holiday began in activism;
it needs rescuing from commercialism and platitudes.)

Every year, people snipe at the shallow commercialism of Mother's Day.
But to ignore your mother on this holy holiday is unthinkable. And if you
are a mother, you'll be devastated if your ingrates fail to honor you at least
one day of the year.

Mother's Day wasn't always like this. The women who conceived Mother's
Day would be bewildered by the ubiquitous ads that hound us to find that
"perfect gift for Mom."  They would expect women to be marching in the
 streets, not eating with their families in restaurants.  This is because
Mother's Day began as a holiday that commemorated women's public
activism, not as a celebration of a mother's devotion to her family.

The story begins in 1858 when a community activist named Anna Reeves
Jarvis organized Mothers' Works Days in West Virginia.  Her immediate
goal was to improve sanitation in Appalachian communities.  During the
Civil War, Jarvis pried women from their families to care for  the wounded
on both sides. Afterward she convened meetings to persuade men to lay
aside their hostilities.

In 1872, Julia Ward Howe, author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic",
proposed an annual Mother's Day for Peace.  Committed to abolishing war,
Howe wrote: "Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage...
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".

For the next 30 years, Americans celebrated Mothers' Day for Peace on
June 2.

Many middle-class women in the 19th century believed that they bore a
 special responsibility as actual or potential mothers to care for the casualties
of society and to turn America into a more civilized nation.  They played
a leading role  in the abolitionist movement to end slavery.  In the following
decades, they launched successful campaigns against lynching and
consumer fraud and battled for improved working conditions for women
and protection for children, public health services and social welfare
assistance to the poor. To the activists, the connection between motherhood
and the fight for social and economic justice seemed self-evident.

In 1913, Congress declared the second Sunday in May to be Mother's
Day.  By then, the growing consumer culture had successfully redefined
women as consumers for their families. Politicians and businessmen
eagerly embraced the idea of celebrating the private sacrifices made by
individual mothers. As the “Florists' Review”, the industry's trade journal,
bluntly put it, "This was a holiday that could be exploited."

The new advertising industry quickly taught Americans how to honor
their mothers - by buying flowers. Outraged by florists who were selling
carnations for the exorbitant price of $1 apiece, Anna Jarvis' daughter
 undertook a campaign against those who "would undermine Mother's
Day with their greed." But she fought a losing battle. Within a few years,
the “Florists' Review” triumphantly announced that it was "Miss Jarvis
who was completely squelched."

Since then, Mother's Day has ballooned into a billion-dollar industry.
Americans may revere the idea of motherhood and love their own mothers,
but not all mothers.  Poor, unemployed mothers may enjoy flowers, but
they also need child care, job training, health care, a higher minimum wage
and paid parental leave. Working mothers may enjoy breakfast in bed,
but they also need the kind of governmental assistance provided by every
other industrialized society.

With a little imagination, we could restore Mother's Day as a holiday that
celebrates women's political engagement in society. During the 1980's,
 some peace groups gathered at nuclear test sites on Mother's Day to
protest the arms race. Today, our greatest threat is not from missiles but
from our indifference toward human welfare and the health of our planet.
Imagine, if you can, an annual Million Mother March in the nation's capital.
Imagine a Mother's Day filled with voices demanding social and economic
justice and a sustainable future, rather than speeches studded with syrupy
platitudes.

Some will think it insulting to alter our current way of celebrating Mother's
Day. But public activism does not preclude private expressions of love and
 gratitude. (Nor does it prevent people from expressing their appreciation
all year round.)

Nineteenth century women dared to dream of a day that honored women's
civil activism.  We can do no less. We should honor their vision with civic
activism.

Ruth Rosen is a professor of history at UC Davis.

ACTIONS
1. Share and discuss this bulletin with family, friends, coworkers and your
 faith community.
2. Encourage and support women’s public activism