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1/15 Did you know that in 1914 suffragists asked President Woodrow Wilson to declare the 1st Saturday in May “Woman’s Independence Day”? Instead, he proclaimed the Second Sunday in May as #MothersDay 
. (image: MWDennett papers, Schlesinger Library @RadInstitute)
. (image: MWDennett papers, Schlesinger Library @RadInstitute)
2/15 Anna Howard Shaw, NAWSA president, demanded that Wilson proclaim Woman's Independence Day a holiday in 1914 “in recognition of the right and necessity that the women of the United States should become citizens in fact as well as in name.”(AHS, 1914, from @librarycongress)
3/15 On May 2, 1914, women across the U.S. celebrated Woman's Independence Day by gathering to read the woman’s Declaration of Independence, sing suffrage hymns, and demand the vote. Every state participated. (Woman's Journal digitized by Schlesinger Lib @RadInstitute)
4/15 The New York Sun reported that cars filled with suffragists “flash through Fifth Avenue” while “flying squads of suffrage orators” whizzed throughout the city and across the state. (from @librarycongress Chronicling America)
5/15 By 1914, suffragists were a force to be reckoned w/, even though the 19th A wasn't ratified till 1920. Which, as @efweiss5 and others have argued, is one reason why Wilson proclaimed Mother’s Day a holiday in 1914, to emphasize women's domestic role. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-radical-roots-of-mothers-day?ref=wrap
6/15 Wilson’s 1914 Mother’s Day Proclamation required US flags be flown at all government buildings and individual homes “as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.” (doc from @USNatArchives) https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/?dod-date=509
7/15 Pres. Wilson’s version of Mother’s Day was certainly not what the suffragists had in mind, nor was it even what the women who had long pressed for Mother’s Day had in mind when they began demanding the day back in the 1870s.
8/15 Anna Jarvis lobbied for #MothersDay for years -- building on the pioneering efforts of her mother Ann, who bore 13 children, watched 9 die, and then created Mother’s Day Work Clubs-- and organized the very first Mother’s Day celebrations. https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/mothers-day/
for years -- building on the pioneering efforts of her mother Ann, who bore 13 children, watched 9 die, and then created Mother’s Day Work Clubs-- and organized the very first Mother’s Day celebrations. https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/mothers-day/
9/15 Other early demands for a Mother’s Day came from Julia Ward Howe, the reformer who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic and started a Mother’s Peace Day after the Civil War to call attention to mother’s sacrifices. (for more see @OBWax here) https://time.com/4771354/mothers-day-history-origins/
10/15 After Mother's Day became a holiday in 1914, Anna Jarvis regretted that florists and card makers got rich off of her idea while she herself got little credit, according this history of #MothersDay . https://www.amazon.com/Memorializing-Motherhood-Struggle-VIRGINIA-APPALACHIA/dp/1938228936/?tag=timecom-20
. https://www.amazon.com/Memorializing-Motherhood-Struggle-VIRGINIA-APPALACHIA/dp/1938228936/?tag=timecom-20
11/15 Few have heard of her today, but Anna Jarvis is the patron saint of the International Mother’s Day Shrine in her hometown of Grafton, WV. #MothersDay https://www.internationalmothersdayshrine.org/about-us
https://www.internationalmothersdayshrine.org/about-us
12/15 As for the women who demanded Woman's Independence Day... Anna Howard Shaw had no children and died just a few months before she would have been able to cast her first ballot in the 1920 election. #19thAt100
13/15 BUT the suffragist who came up with the idea for Woman’s Independence Day – Ruth Hanna McCormick—went on to serve in the House of Representatives and then became the first female major party candidate for US Senate (R-IL). #19thAt100 https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/17791
14/15 So this #MothersDay , let’s honor the suffragists’ demand for Woman’s Independence Day by working for universal voting rights (perhaps by supporting @LWV, the group NAWSA became, or the @splcenter’s voting rights project) and by electing women! https://www.lwv.org/voting-rights
, let’s honor the suffragists’ demand for Woman’s Independence Day by working for universal voting rights (perhaps by supporting @LWV, the group NAWSA became, or the @splcenter’s voting rights project) and by electing women! https://www.lwv.org/voting-rights
15/15 Did you know that <5% of Congress members are moms (and women are just 23.7% of Congress)? What better way to support motherhood than to elect #MomsforCongress like @KateForCongress! Doing so would also honor what the women who 1st asked for #MothersDay wanted.
wanted.
