Mother's Day History: Origin of the Modern Celebration

Mother's Day History: Origin of the Modern Celebration

Mother's Day . . . Few of us are more than dimly aware of the history of our modern celebration of these extraordinary women. You can perhaps recall enough of the history of Mother's Day to know that it originated in the hills of Appalachia and is now celebrated in countries throughout the world. What you may not realize is that the founder of Mother's Day eventually confessed that she regretted ever starting the tradition.

In the United States, Mother's Day originated nearly 150 years ago, when Anna Jarvis, an Appalachian homemaker, organized a "Mother's Work Day" to raise awareness of poor economic and health conditions affecting the children in her community, a cause she believed would be best advocated by mothers.

Fifteen years later, Julia Ward Howe, a pacifist, suffragist, and author of the lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," proposed an annual event called Mother's Day, but the idea received little support. She organized a day encouraging mothers to rally for peace, since she believed they bore the loss of human life more harshly than anyone else. 

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When Anna Jarvis died in 1905, her daughter (also named Anna) wished to create a memorial to her mother's work and began a campaign to institute an official  holiday to honor mothers. The first Mother's Day observance was a church service honoring Anna's mother and all mothers that Anna arranged. She supplied the decorations for the service -- white carnations, her mother's favorite flowers, chosen because they represent sweetness, purity, and endurance. Today the white flowers signify that one's mother has died and red carnations in time became the symbol of a living mother.

Anna Jarvis, daughter of Anna Reeves Jarvis, who had moved from Grafton, West Virginia, to Philadelphia, in 1890, was the power behind the official establishment of Mother's Day

• swore at her mother's gravesite in 1905 to dedicate her life to her mother's project, and establish a Mother's Day to honor mothers, living and dead
• a persistent rumor is that Anna's grief was intensified because she and her mother had quarreled and her mother died before they could reconcile 
• in 1907 she passed out 500 white carnations at her mother's church, St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia -- one for each mother in the congregation
• May 10, 1908: the first church -- St. Andrew's in Grafton, West Virginia -- responded to her request for a Sunday service honoring mothers
• 1908: John Wanamaker, a Philadelphia merchant, joined the campaign for Mother's Day
• also in 1908: the first bill was presented in the U.S. Senate proposing establishment of Mother's Day, by Nebraska Senator Elmer Burkett, at the request of the Young Men's Christian Association. The proposal was killed by sending it back to committee, 33-14.
• 1909: Mother's Day services were held in 46 states plus Canada and Mexico
• Anna Jarvis gave up her job -- sometimes reported as a teaching job, sometimes as a job clerking in an insurance office -- to work full-time writing letters to politicians, clergy members, business leaders, women's clubs and anyone else she thought might have some influence
• Anna Jarvis was able to enlist the World's Sunday School Association in the lobbying campaign, a key success factor in convincing legislators in states and in the U.S. Congress to support the holiday
• 1912: West Virginia became the first state to adopt an official Mother's Day
• 1914: the U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution, and President Woodrow Wilson signed it, establishing Mother's Day, emphasizing women's role in the family (not as activists in the public arena, as Howe's Mother's Day had been)
• Texas Senators Cotton Tom Heflin and Morris Shepard introduced the joint resolution adopted in 1914. Both were ardent prohibitionists.
• Anna Jarvis became increasingly concerned over the commercialization of Mother's Day: "I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit." She opposed the selling of flowers (see below) and also the use of greeting cards: "a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write."
• 1923: Anna Jarvis filed suit against New York Governor Al Smith, over a Mother's Day celebration; when a court threw the suit out, she began a public protest and was arrested for disturbing the peace
• 1931: Anna Jarvis criticized Eleanor Roosevelt for her work with a Mother's Day committee that was not Jarvis' committee
• Anna Jarvis never had children of her own. She died in 1948, blind and penniless, and was buried next to her mother in a cemetery in the Philadelphia area.

Mother's Day Landmark:

• the International Mother's Day Shrine: this church in Grafton, West Virginia, was the site of the first unofficial Mother's Day celebration as created by Anna Jarvis, May 10, 1907