Origins of Mother's Day in America

Mother's Day has become a very popular day for the family. Mom is (sometimes) lavished with gifts, but more importantly by expressions of love and gratitude from her children. The gifts are are just one mode of expression.

Mother's Day was first declared a national holiday in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson, following a long campaign by a Philadelphia school-teacher, Anna Jarvis, to set up a special day for mothers. It was a day to honor mothers whose sons had died in World War 1. President Wilson directed in his proclamation that the U.S flag should be displayed on all government buildings, and also invited people to display the flag at their homes as a "public expreession of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country." Some states had already declared their own holiday even before then, starting with West Virginina in 1910.

Anna Jarvis started the campaign after her mother, Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis, died in 1905. She wanted to establish a national mother's day. In 1907 Anna handed out a white carnation to each of 500 mothers in the congregation at her mother's church. That church, the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia, became the International Mother's Day Shrine in 1962 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992.

With the support of her friends she began a letter-writing campaign. The first mother's day was observed in 1908 in the Andrews Methodist Church. Popular support became widespread and the Mother's Day International Association was formed in December 1912.

Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis had herself been an influential figure in her lifetime. She had during the Civil War organized Mothers' Work Days to improve sanitary conditions and help care for the wounded soldiers, on both sides of the conflict. She worked to promote Mothers' Friendship Day and organized Mothers' Friendship Clubs, to teach women basic nursing and sanitation.

Anna remained a spinster and spent many years caring for her aging mother.

Julia Ward Howe had also taken up the mantle. A social activist, she was also inspired by the work of Ann Marie Jarvis. She too had been moved by the deaths and mutilations caused during the Civil War. In the 1870's during the Franco-Prussian War, she vigorously campaigned for a women's movement to oppose war. She promoted the idea of a "Mother's Day for Peace." In 1872 she traveled to London to campagn for an International Women's Peace Congress. In 1873, a Mother's Day for Peace was held in 18 cities in the U.S. This was a landmark political moment.

Going back, breifly, into ancient history, Mother's Day can be traced to the spring celebrations in ancient Greece, held to honor Rhea, the mother of the Greek gods and goddesses. There was also the celebration amongst the early Christians of the Mother's festival, honoring Mary the mother of Jesus. This was later transformed into Mothering Sunday - for all mothers. "Mother Church" also came to be honored. The idea of the British Mothering Sunday was transplanted to America by the English settlers but the practice was largely not observed. These are all influences but they are not direct precursors of Mother's Day in America.

The establishment of Mother's Day was what Anna worked for, but in later years she grew increasingly disenchanted with the way in which commercialization had set in. In 1948, in her eighties, she protested at a Mother's Day celebration in New York and was arrested for disturbing the peace. She even said that she wished she had never started it. She died the same year. She had become blind and penniless.

She was buried next to her mother's grave in Philadelphia.