The History of Mother’s Day as a Holiday
Mother’s Day greetings! You might be surprised to learn about Mother’s Day’s actual history in the United States. Three women made significant contributions that continue to this day in the areas of greater health, welfare, peace, and love. This story is also bittersweet.
The Mother’s Day holiday, usually observed on the second Sunday in May, didn’t start out as a method to give moms a day off or give them gifts. To improve the lives of other Americans, it essentially started as a women’s movement.
The originator of Mother’s Day?
Three women, namely Ann Reeves Jarvis, Julia Ward Howe, and Ann’s daughter, Anna M. Jarvis, are chiefly responsible for the establishment of a national Mother’s Day.
Reeves Ann Jarvis
Young Appalachian homemaker Ann Reeves Jarvis, also referred to as “Mother Jarvis,” was a Sunday school instructor. She was also a lifetime activist who started “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” in West Virginia in the middle of the 1800s to fight against filthy living conditions. Reeves Jarvis sought to inform and assist moms who needed it most due to his concern about the high infant mortality rate, which was particularly prevalent in Appalachia.
Mother Jarvis also set up women’s brigades during the Civil War, urging women to lend a hand regardless of which side their husbands supported. She suggested a Mothers’ Friendship Day after the war to encourage amity between former Union and Confederate families.
Howe, Julia Ward
Poet and activist Julia Ward Howe was well-known. She volunteered for the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the Civil War, assisting them in ensuring sanitary conditions while treating ill and injured soldiers and creating hygienic environs for hospitals. She wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the well-known Civil War anthem, in 1861; it was initially released in February 1862.
Julia Ward Howe proposed a “Mother’s Day for Peace” to honor peace and put an end to war somewhere about 1870. Howe believed that women should come together to stop the cruelty of war and the waste of life since mothers are the only ones who experience and understand its costs, as stated in what is known as her “Mother’s Day Proclamation” from 1870.
For approximately 30 years, Howe’s version of Mother’s Day was celebrated in Boston and other cities, but in the years before World War I, it was quickly abandoned.
Up until 1907, when a Miss Anna M. Jarvis from Philadelphia took up the cause, nothing new occurred in this department.
Jarvis, Anna M.
Miss Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia launched a campaign for a national day to celebrate all mothers after the passing of her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, in 1905. Her goal was to commemorate her mother’s life. Ann Jarvis once stated, “I hope and pray that someone, eventually, will create a Mother’s Day memorial honouring her for the unparalleled contribution she offers to humanity in every field of life. She has a right to it.
Anna’s thoughts focused less on doing good deeds for the community and more on simply respecting mothers and the sacrifices they make for their families. She pounded influential people and a variety of civic groups with telegrams, letters, and in-person conversations. She spoke to both large and small audiences. She created, printed, and disseminated pamphlets promoting her proposal on her own dime.
Why Mother’s Day is in May in the United States
In May 1907, Anna conducted a memorial ceremony at the Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, where her mother had taught, to honor her mother’s lifelong work. The same church hosted a Mother’s Day ceremony the following year on May 10 to honor all mothers. The concept to dedicate the second Sunday in May to celebrating all mothers, living or deceased, was thus formed.
The Philadelphia mayor became aware of her efforts and declared a local Mother’s Day. She advanced from the local level to Washington, D.C. The local leaders were quick to offer their vocal support because they recognized a good thing when they saw one.
Others followed West Virginia’s lead as the state became the first to formally recognize the holiday. Representative J. Thomas Heflin of Alabama and Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas presented a joint resolution to Congress requesting that Mother’s Day be celebrated across the country after different states declared the day to be so. Both houses of Congress approved the resolution.
Mother’s Day is a federal holiday that was established by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. It is celebrated on the second Sunday in May and is honoring “the best mother in the world, your mother.” Church services were held in honor of all mothers, living and deceased, throughout the early years when the day was honored as a legal holiday, but in complete simplicity and reverence.
A Sorrowful Legacy
Many accounts indicate that Anna’s only motivation was to honor her mother, who she claimed created the original Mother’s Day. She was horrified to see the holiday become more commercialized as greeting cards and flowers were sent. She also didn’t want the holiday to be promoted by women’s groups, charitable foundations, or public health reformers in order to raise money, which is ironic given her mother’s commitment to public health. Anna Jarvis passed away at a hospital in a stage of dementia in 1948.
This is Mother’s Day.
Mother’s Day is enduring and changing. The present Mother’s Day honors the various responsibilities that moms today play, just as Mother’s Day was created by a number of women. We honor the myriad ways mothers have struggled for the betterment of their children, from nonviolent protest to social welfare. We also pay tribute to the women who bravely and lovingly brought up their kids.
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL MOTHERS AROUND THE WORLD!!
