I read Heather Cox Richardson’s column every day. Sometimes I listen to it AND read it. She’s brilliant and she reminds me why I switched from Political Science to History as a major in college. Perspective gives us hope and power. Remembering the past – and not just being caught up in the turmoil of the present – helps us make better choices and concentrate on the long-term outcome without catastrophizing every litte thing.
I mention in the write up on 1815 Vallejo that the original owner, Joseph Maillard and his brother John, were nephews of Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic. But today I learned she also founded the first Mothers’ Day, which was about women taking their rightful place in the political power structure to prevent war. Quoting from Dr. Cox’s column today:
““Arise, women!” Howe commanded. “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.’”
Howe had her document translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Swedish and distributed it as widely as her extensive contacts made possible. She believed that her Women’s Peace Movement would be the next great development in human history, ending war just as the antislavery movement had ended human bondage. She called for a “festival which should be observed as mothers’ day, and which should be devoted to the advocacy of peace doctrines” to be held around the world on June 2 of every year, a date that would permit open-air meetings.
Howe organized international peace conferences, and American states developed their own Mothers’ Day festivals. But Howe quickly realized that there was much to be done before women could come together on a global scale. She turned her attention to women’s clubs “to constitute a working and united womanhood.””
You can subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter here and join her other nearly 3MM subscribers – or find her podcast or all the other places she’s published, and you can read Julia Ward Howe’s “Appeal to womanhood throughout the world,” from 1970 in the Library of Congress here..
We are connected, as always, by our shared past and futures. Happy Mothers’ Day!!