Emily is not an overly sentimental creature. She rarely gets overly enthused for human holidays. Mother's Day is no exception. However, this year, she did some digging. Historical digging. Context-minded being that she is, she wanted to know where the idea of Mother's Day came from. What she dug up is pretty interesting.
Emily's first discovery was that, not too surprisingly, the movement to make Mother's Day a national holiday was the work of a woman: Anna Marie Jarvis (1864-1948). Jarvis wanted a day that commemorated the "matchless service" of mothers. She was inspired originally by thinking about the thankless work that women did around the country and, after her own mother's passing, she organized events to make Mother's Day official. Mothers' Day, as we now know it, was first celebrated in 1908. Thanks to Jarvis' tireless efforts, in 1914, Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day a national holiday. All of this continued the work of Anna Jarvis' mother, Ann Jarvis who, after the Civil War, created a day for the reunion of families split up during the war.
Emily's further investigations revealed that before Anna Marie Jarvis, however, the seeds of a "Mother's Day" were planted years earlier. Before 1908 there were observances of "Mothers' Day"-- the apostrophe moved one space to the right to indicate that it was a day that belonged to mothers not a day that was about them -- had been held. These earlier celebrations were organized by the feminists of the late 19th century and involved political issues such as temperance and anti-war protesting. In 1872, Julia Ward Howe organized a "Mothers' Day of Celebration." The day and its associated proclamation "Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World" were created to give women a political voice at a time when meaningful political engagement was considered unladylike. The Mothers' Day of Celebration gave women a platform to voice their opinions about the bloodshed they had so recently seen in the American Civil War. Ironically enough, the contemporary Mother's Day was made a holiday in 1914, on the brink of World War I. The contemporary celebration of Mother's Day comes more from the efforts of Anna Marie Jarvis than Julia Ward Howe, however, it is important not to lose sight of where this holiday originated: with strong women who wanted to amplify the voice of those who could not be heard, and who were not often enough officially recognized for their contributions to the home, the nation, and the world.
Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World
Julia Ward Howe
Again, in the sight of the Christian world, have the skill and power of two great nations exhausted themselves in mutual murder. Again have the sacred questions of international justice been committed to the fatal mediation of military weapons. In this day of progress, in this century of light, the ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interests of domestic life for the bloody exchanges of the battle field. Thus men have done. Thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror. Despite the assumptions of physical force, the mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard, and answered to as never before.
Arise, then, Christian women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether your baptism be that of water or of 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 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.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at some place 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.
Emily displays her independence in a battle with the Rainbow Snake:
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