Though The New Agenda supports the establishment of a National Women’s History Museum, this post was written by and represents the opinions of NWHM. In a future post, we will provide more information about the legislation to which this post refers, and on how The New Agenda is supporting it.

Much of women’s history is missing from our public story. One more example — women were almost entirely responsible for the recognition of Memorial Day. Its origin was the Civil War and until recently, the day focused on the terrible War between the states that, at tremendous human cost, ended slavery.

Just weeks after the Civil War ended in April 1865, Ellen Call Long organized a women’s memorial society to reconcile embittered enemies. Usually named some variant of “women’s relief society,” groups sprang up in both the North and South that not only memorialized the dead, but also cared for the war’s disabled and its widows and orphans.

by Winslow Homer, 1862

On June 22, 1865, women adopted these profound, forgiving, and future-oriented resolutions. The document read in part:

The object of this meeting is to initiate a Memorial Association… that shall perpetuate in an honorable manner the memory of the gallant dead…

In no invidious spirit do we come; the political storm that shook our country to its foundation, we hope, is passed… We are done with the [Confederate] cause…and are willing to do all that women can do to stem the tide of bitterness…and angry feelings… We will practice and teach forbearance and patience, which must finally bring peace and justice…

Our society has forgotten that women cleaned up the mess. They took the gruesome reality of approximately a half-million dead men, and by promoting cemeteries, led the way in turning blood and gore into something that encouraged serenity and reflection.

In our nation’s capital filled with museums, there is not one to remind us of the totality of the experience of American women. That is why NWHM needs you. Please emulate Ellen Call Long and others who understood that the past is an essential prologue to the future. Support us, “Right Here, Right now!” by going to [our website] and sending a letter to your members of Congress urging them to give women’s history a home in our nations capital by passing HR 1700.