Sunday, May 08, 2005
My Turn: Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Celebrate Mother's Day as a day dedicated to peace
By PAULA SUTTON
Mother's Day is not a Hallmark Holiday; it is a day dedicated to women's public activism and peace. Better known for penning the famous Battle Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) proposed Mother's Day as a day dedicated to peace.
As a wife, mother, daughter, writer, poet, lecturer, Unitarian, patriot, abolitionist, feminist, suffragist, social reformer, Howe devoted her life to peace and justice. She was inspired by the work of Anna Reeves Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker, who beginning in 1858, tried to improve sanitation in her community through what she called Mothers' Work Days. During the Civil War, Jarvis expanded her sanitation campaign to both sides of the conflict and organized women to care for the wounded. After the war, Jarvis convened meetings to persuade people to lay down their hostilities.
Julia Ward Howe witnessed the carnage of war and other devastating realities affecting loved ones, the economy, and the environment. In 1872, she wrote a Mother's Day Proclamation as a passionate plea for women to gather and call for disarmament and peace.
"Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or tears! Say firmly: 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 taught 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! ... As men have often 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..."
Celebrate Mother's Day as a day dedicated to peace
By PAULA SUTTON
Mother's Day is not a Hallmark Holiday; it is a day dedicated to women's public activism and peace. Better known for penning the famous Battle Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) proposed Mother's Day as a day dedicated to peace.
As a wife, mother, daughter, writer, poet, lecturer, Unitarian, patriot, abolitionist, feminist, suffragist, social reformer, Howe devoted her life to peace and justice. She was inspired by the work of Anna Reeves Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker, who beginning in 1858, tried to improve sanitation in her community through what she called Mothers' Work Days. During the Civil War, Jarvis expanded her sanitation campaign to both sides of the conflict and organized women to care for the wounded. After the war, Jarvis convened meetings to persuade people to lay down their hostilities.
Julia Ward Howe witnessed the carnage of war and other devastating realities affecting loved ones, the economy, and the environment. In 1872, she wrote a Mother's Day Proclamation as a passionate plea for women to gather and call for disarmament and peace.
"Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or tears! Say firmly: 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 taught 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! ... As men have often 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..."
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