I cut and pasted this from the National Women's History Project. For more information, check out:
www.nwhp.orgHistory of Mother's Day
Given the following possibilities, how many of us could pick the right answer?
Mother's Day began:
* In 1858, when Anna Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker, organized "Mother's Work Days" to improve the sanitation and avert deaths from disease-bearing insects and seepage of polluted water.
* In 1872, when Boston poet, pacifist and women's suffragist Julia Ward Howe established a special day for mothers --and for peace-- not long after the bloody Franco-Prussian War.
* In 1905, when Anna Jarvis died, her daughter, also named Anna, decided to memorialize her mother's lifelong activism, and began a campaign that culminated in 1914 when Congress passed a Mother's Day resolution.
The correct answer: All of the above. Each woman and all of these events have contributed to the present occasion now celebrated on the second Sunday in May.
The cause of world peace was the impetus for Julia Ward Howe's establishment, over a century ago, of a special day for mothers. Following unsuccessful efforts to pull together an international pacifist conference after the Franco-Prussian War, Howe began to think of a global appeal to women.
"While the war was still in progress," she wrote, she keenly felt the "cruel and unnecessary character of the contest." She believed, as any woman might, that it could have been settled without bloodshed. And, she wondered, "Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?"
Howe's version of Mother's Day, which served as an occasion for advocating peace, was held successfully in Boston and elsewhere for several years, but eventually lost popularity and disappeared from public notice in the years preceding World War I.
For Anna Jarvis, also known as "Mother Jarvis," community improvement by mothers was only a beginning. Throughout the Civil War she organized women's brigades, asking her workers to do all they could without regard for which side their men had chosen. And, in 1868, she took the initiative to heal the bitter rifts between her Confederate and Union neighbors.
The younger Anna Jarvis was only twelve years old in 1878 when she listened to her mother teach a Sunday school lesson on mothers in the Bible. "I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother's day," the senior Jarvis said. "There are many days for men, but none for mothers."
Following her mother's death, Anna Jarvis embarked on a remarkable campaign. She poured out a constant stream of letters to men of prominence -- President William Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt among them -- and enlisted considerable help from Philadelphia merchant John Wannamaker. By May of 1907, a Mother's Day service had been arranged on the second Sunday in May at the Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, where Mother Jarvis had taught. That same day a special service was held at the Wannamaker Auditorium in Philadelphia, which could seat no more than a third of the 15,000 people who showed up.
The custom spread to churches in 45 states and in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Mexico and Canada. The Governor of West Virginia proclaimed Mother's Day in 1912; Pennsylvania's governor in 1913 did the same. The following year saw the Congressional Resolution, which was promptly signed by President Woodrow Wilson.
Mother's Day has endured. It serves now, as it originally did, to recognize the contributions of women. Mother's Day, like the job of "mothering," is varied and diverse. Perhaps that's only appropriate for a day honoring the multiple ways women find to nurture their families, and the ways in which so many have nurtured their communities, their countries, and the larger world.
Last Saturday I led a women's history tour in New York City with a terrific group of girls and their mothers! I had donated the tour as an item for the auction to raise money for Sophie's school and the Mom of a 7th grader made the winning bid. We met at Eleanor Roosevelt's statue at 72nd and Riverside Drive at noon on a very hot day. Three hours and several subway stops to visit sites, including Anna Hyatt Huntington's magnificent sculpture, Joan of Arc, and The Stanton, the apartment building where Elizabeth Cady Stanton died, we ended at 155th where this picture was taken by a willing dog walker. We're standing in front of the bronze doors at the American Academy of Arts and Letter, which are "Dedicated to the Memory of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and the Women Writers of America."
I met a wonderful group of women yesterday when I spoke at the
Now, two years later, here are Sophie & a beluga eye-to-eye. The next day we stopped at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, where Sophie rode the carousel, which was built in the late 1880s, had lunch in Port Judith, and then went on to Newport.
ne 9, 1909, twenty-two- year- old Alice Ramsey, with her two sisters-in-law and a friend, set off from New York CIty to drive across America in a Maxwell DA. Fifty-nine days later (41 actual driving days), after many hair-raising adventures, they arrived in San Francisco, where cheering crowds welcomed them. Thus, as the only driver, Alice earned the title of the first woman to complete the transcontinental trip. Today Emily Anderson with Christi Catania to help navigate, and a rotating list of two additional passengers set off to re-create Alice's historic trip in a Maxwell DA that Emily and her father have rebuilt from scratch. Linda and I cheered them on from the side of the road in Wappinger Falls, NY, then followed them to Poughkeepsie for a reception at Vassar College, Alice's alma mater. Fabulous experience!! You can learn more and follow their adventure (via map, blog, Twitter) at www.aliceramsey.org. The top picture is Emily holding her four-month old daughter, who along with her grandmother, is on the trip, too. (They ride in a car that follows the Maxwell DA.) The smiling woman at the right is Catharine Bond Hill, the president of Vassar. The bottom picture is me talking with Charlie MacDonald, an antique car buff, who waited for hours to see Emily drive by. We're standing by his 1936 Buick; the antique car community, I discovered, is quite interested in this trip and the Anderson's rebuilt Maxwell DA. The video is of their departure from Vassar.
ngs, paintings, sculptures. I have a video of our conversation that I'll post later. Thank you to Catherine Nadal, Women's Veterans Program Manager, who invited me to speak. (click on pic for larger image)
Last night I was thrilled to be honored as a 2009 Woman of Achievement by the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs of General Federation of Women's Clubs and Douglass College of Rutgers, the State University. It was a glorious event and experience!!! Thank you to Anne H. Redlus, President of NJSFWC and all the members!!!!! The pictures L-R (click on pic for larger image): me giving my thank-you speech; Joint Legislative Resolution of commendation and congratulations from the Senate and General Assembly of New Jersey; Certificate of Recognition from NJSFWC
