The "Appeal to womanhood throughout the world" (later known as "Mother's Day Proclamation") by Julia Ward Howe was an appeal for women to unite for peace in the world. Written in 1870, Howe's "Appeal to womanhood" was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The appeal was tied to Howe's feminist conviction that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level. Today, an edited version of the appeal is included in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal Singing the Living Tradition.