Mother's Day

The first Mother's Day was 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, written by Julia Ward Howe

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 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
teachthem of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be
too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to
injure their's. From the bosom of a devastated earth a voice goes up with
our own, it says, "Diarm! Disarm!" The sword of murder is not the balance
of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate
possession.

As men have forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, leet
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 commenmorate 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 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 be appointed and held at some
place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period, consistant with its
objects to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable
settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of
peace.