The Origins of Mother's Day

It has been 140 years since Mother's Day first came into being, yet few people know that it was originally conceived as a day for mothers to protest injustice and war. Over the years the activist observance of this holiday became squelched by its commercialization by flower and card companies who turned it into billion-dollar industry. There has been a recent movement to return Mother's Day to its original meaning.
read more:
The Original Anti-War Mother's Day
Soap to Ploughshares: How to return Mother's Day to its original meaning.
CODEPINK Observes Mother's Day With Protest
Mothers' Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870
Mother’s Day for Peace: A Dramatic Reading of Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation
Mother's Day Proclamation
Original Mother's Day a war protest
Mothers Acting Up


Three more takes on the origins of Mother's Day . . .

CODEPINK : Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

www.codepink4peace.org
Arise then...women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! . . . Our sons shall not be taken from us to  unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy and patience.

The Radical History of Mother’s Day

www.nationofchange.org

There’s a good number of us who question holidays like Mother’s Day in which you spend more time feeding money into a system that exploits our love for our mothers than actually celebrating them. . . .

Mother's Day: The Radical Roots in the U.S.A.

www.allvoices.com

Mother's day in the U.S. was originally associated with two radical women activists Julia Ward Howe and Anna Maria Jarvis. Howe was well known as an abolitionist, suffragist and author . . . .