The History of Mother's Day

Julia Ward Howe was the first to propose a "mother's day" in the U.S.  

In 1870 she introduced her "Mother's Day Proclamation", which was based on her experiences as a wife and mother and the atrocities she witnessed while living through the Civil War. Howe visited a Union army campy near the Potomac River. Here she over heard soldiers singing the tune "Jim Brown's Body", and was inspired to write a poem to the same music. The poem would be published the following year as the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", and would become the Union's patriotic anthem.

In addition to her role during the abolitionist movement and the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe would also play an important role in the women's suffrage movement. It was her belief that a woman should have more social responsibility beyond tending to her husband, and she used her gift of prose to spread the message:

Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation - 1870

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

Say firmly:
"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 out 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 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.