Mother’s Day was originally designated as a day to inspire people to work for peace. It was conceived after wars at home and abroad by American abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe.
Besides initiating the tradition of Mother’s Day, Howe is best known as the author of the words to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. As a pacifist during the Civil War, she witnessed the devastating effects of the conflict through her work with widows and orphans. In 1870 she wrote the “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” a call to women to oppose war and to convene to promote peace and be the architects of their family’s — and their own — political futures. She presented it at international peace conferences in London and Paris , where she lamented the atrocities of not only the American Civil War, but also the Franco-Prussian War.

Howe envisioned the first “Mother’s Day” as a time for women to gather, grieve and determine a peaceful solution to war. Her “Mother’s Day Proclamation” reads:

Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace 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.

In 1872 she continued to promote the power of motherhood and womanhood for peace by calling for a “Mother’s Day for Peace,” to be celebrated on June 2. In 1873, women in 18 American cities held Mother’s Day for Peace gatherings. During Howe’s lifetime there was never any formal recognition of Mother’s Day, but Howe’s efforts influenced Anna Jarvis, whose mother, also named Anna, had organized women during the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, calling for Mothers’ Work Days.

After the death of her mother, daughter Anna Jarvis was determined to found a memorial day for women. She celebrated her first Mother’s Day on May 10, 1908 , at the Methodist church where her mother had taught Sunday school. West Virginia Governor William E. Glasscock issued the first state-recognized Mother’s Day proclamation on April 26, 1910 . Two years later, Anna was recognized as the founder of Mother’s Day by the General Methodist Conference.

President Woodrow Wilson declared an official national Mother’s Day in 1914, approving the Congressional resolution to celebrate the day every year on the second Sunday in May.