portsmouthhistorynotes

Julia in her Oak Glen Parlor

Did you know that Julia Ward Howe was the first to propose a Mother’s Day? She envisioned it as a Day of Peace in protest to war?

“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!… 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.”~Julia Ward Howe, 1870
From her Mother’s Day Proclamation for Peace
She wrote in Reminiscences in 1914:  “I had desired to institute a festival which should be observed as Mother’s Day, and which should be devoted to the advocates of peace doctrines. I…