“War is not healthy for children and other living things”
“War is not healthy for children and other living things” is a popular 1960s poster; the words are shown under a sunflower. The poster was designed by Lorraine Schneider and displayed at New York’s Pratt Institute in 1965. The group Another Mother for Peace, based in Beverly Hills, California, had mothers send out Mother’s Day cards with this message in 1967 to protest the Vietnam War.
Wikipedia: Another Mother for Peace
Another Mother for Peace (AMP) is a grass-roots anti-war advocacy group founded in 1967 in opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam. The association is “dedicated to eliminating the use of war as a means of solving disputes among nations, people and ideologies. To accomplish this, we seek to educate citizens to take an active role in opposing war and building peace.”
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AMP’s first action was a Mother’s Day campaign in opposition to the Vietnam War. Their plan was to send then-President Lyndon B. Johnson and members of Congress Mother’s Day cards expressing their yearning for peace.
Los Angeles artist Lorraine Art Schneider donated the use of a striking illustration for the Mother’s Day peace cards—a sunflower on yellow background amid the slogan “War is not healthy for children and other living things.”
24 April 1967, Charleston (WV) Gazette, “Cards for Peace Best on Market,” pg. 4, col. 2:
“War is not healthy for children and other living things,” is the message on the outside.
On the inside of this unusual Mother’s Day card is this additional message:
“For my Mother’s Day gift this year I don’t want candy or flowers. I want an end to killing. We who have given life must be dedicated to preserving it. Please talk peace.”
As you have no doubt guessed, this is a Mother’s Day card to be sent by mothers, not received.
The cards are being distributed by “Another Mother for Peace,” Box 69930, Los Angles, Calif. 90069.
29 April 1967, State-Times (Baton Rouge, LA), “Sparked by Mothers: Peace Promotion Group Formed,” pg. 1, col. 5:
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP)—Women who oppose the war in Vietnam but balk at walking a picket line are sending a Mother’s Day card instead to President Johnson.
It’s a simple message: “War is not healthy for children and other living things. Talk peace.”
The protest is a creation of “Another Mother For Peace,” a volunteer group formed five weeks ago at the home of Barbara Avedon, an Oscar-winning film and television writer.
16 October 1969, New York (NY) Times, Most Students and Their Teachers Stay Out of School; Thousands Assail War; 5,000 Rally In the Park To Protest” by Leonard Buder, pg. 20:
“I’ve never protested anything before,” said Kathy Sheeban, a at Cathedral High School, who carried a sign reading, “War is not healthy for children and other living things.”
12 December 1972, Waterloo (IA) Daily Courier, “Peace Logo Artist Dies,” pg. 10, col. 8:
Mrs. Lorraine Schneider, artist who conceived the logo, “War Is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things,” is dead at the age of 42.
She died of cancer at her home in the Beverly Hills area of California, according to accounts received by the Another Mother for Peace group in the metropolitan area.
Mrs. Schneider’s logo that was designed as her “personal picket sign” was entered in an exhibition at the Pratt Institute of New York in 1965.
New York (NY) Times
Talk to the Newsroom:
Culture Editor Sam Sifton
Published: June 19, 2006
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(For myself, it was pretty cool to learn the history of that old “War Is Not Healthy for Children or Other Living Things” poster that I grew up seeing in friends’ parents’ bathrooms. Lorraine Schneider designed it for an art contest in 1965. Two years later it was adopted by the Beverly Hills antiwar group Another Mother For Peace. The show’s curators say that it was the most widely distributed poster of the Vietnam War era. It definitely made it to a lot of church basements, and to the wall above the dusty tomatoes at the hippie greengrocer’s on the corner.)