Gather ’round, friends, and let us learn a little bit Mother’s Day, or rather Mothers’ Day (plural possessive, that is).

Today’s lesson is not just a lesson in history – it’s also a lesson in feminism. Women* have often pulled together to help each other, through times of war, oppression, and frankly, basic survival. They are the glue that has held many important social movements together. Julia Ward Howe, a writer, poet, and activist, understood this notion. She saw Mothers’ Day as unifying force for peace—to reunite families torn apart by the Civil War and to appeal to pacifists globally to stop support for the Franco-Prussian War happening outside our borders.

Recognizing the toll that war has on families (and that the perpetrators of war were almost always men) Howe issued “An Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World” in 1870: