It’s Mother’s Day, again. That time for showering your mom with cards and flowers, and chocolates and gifts… right?
Wrong. Or at least, that was NOT the intention of the original holiday, nor the goal for the women who dreamed of it.
Peace. Unity. Solidarity was.
The year was 1870. Just after the Civil War, in the United States. More than half a million people had died.
And one woman decided to stand for peace and an end to war.
Her name was Julia Ward Howe. She was a well-known author and poet. An abolitionist and an activist. She wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic, a patriotic song for the Union ahead of the war.
And in 1870 she wrote her “Appeal to womanhood throughout the world”… Her “Mothers’ Day Proclamation.”
“Arise, then… women of this day!” She wrote.
“Arise, all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!
“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 of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate 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 council.”
She called on women to unite. To meet. To join hands across cultures and nations and lead the way for an end to war.
She called for a Mother’s Day for Peace.
Around this time an organizer and social activist from West Virginia named Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis was already picking up the cause. She’d started Mother’s Day Work Clubs in several cities to help improve health conditions. During the Civil War, they’d declared neutrality and offered medical aid and assistance to soldiers from both the North and the South.
After the war, she worked to reunite communities destroyed and divided by the fighting. Despite threats of violence, she planned a “Mothers Friendship Day.” In Pruntytown, West Virginia, they brought together soldiers from both sides, the Union and the Confederacy, to help each other heal. They sang songs. They cried.
And when Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis passed in 1905, her daughter, Anna Jarvis, made it her life’s mission to establish a day for mothers in her honor.
She held the first Mother’s Day ceremonies in May 1908, in Philadelphia and Grafton, West Virginia. She distributed white carnations to those in attendance to symbolize the quote “truth, purity and broad-charity of mother love.”
She campaigned tirelessly for the day to be transformed into a national holiday. She organized. She wrote letters to powerful people.
And… they listened.
In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday in May a national holiday — Mother’s Day.
But… It did not go as planned.
Jarvis saw her holiday coopted by businesses trying to make a buck. How it was being commercialized with the sale of flowers, gifts, and greeting cards.
That was not the idea. And she railed against it.
She famously said, “A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world.”
She filed lawsuits against companies she said were profiting off of the holiday.
She protested. And was arrested for obstructing the sale of flowers.
In the 1940s, she organized a petition to rescind the day.
Mother’s Day, she said, had lost its essence. Its meaning. In the name of profit.
It had lost its roots of peace. Love and Unity…
But it is never too late.
This Mother’s Day, let’s remember where this holiday came from.
Forgo the presents, and the flowers and the chocolate.
And instead give your mom a hug and share with her the story of the true meaning of Mother’s Day.
A Mother’s Day for Peace.
An end to war.
An end to violence.
An end to the separation of families.
A call for unity among nations and peoples.
Regardless of the color of their skin, their language,
Or their immigration status.
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Thanks so much for listening.
I want to send a special thanks and shout out to the peace organization Code Pink for their excellent article that shined light on this forgotten story of Mother’s Day. The article was written over a decade ago, but nothing has changed. I was inspired to do this episode thanks to it. I’ll add a link in the show notes to that article as well as some other stories with background to this forgotten history.
As always, I’m your host Michael Fox. This is Stories of Resistance, a new podcast series co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Each week, I bring you stories of resistance and hope like this. Inspiration for dark times. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment or leave a review.
As always, thanks for listening. See you next time.
This is episode 31 of Stories of Resistance — a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange’s Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.
If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a review. You can also follow Michael’s reporting and support at www.patreon.com/mfox.
Written and produced by Michael Fox.
Resources
The Radical History of Mother’s Day: https://www.codepink.org/the_radical_history_of_mother_s_day
“Why Was Mother’s Day Created and Why Did Its Founder Protest Against It?”: https://medium.com/@rgdaksh03122005/why-was-mothers-day-created-and-why-did-its-founder-protest-against-it-81807571a7ee
She invented Mother’s Day — then waged a lifelong campaign against it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/05/11/anna-jarvis-mothers-day-founder
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