Mother's Day
Mother's Day History
Roots in the holiday may lie in "Mothering Day," which has been celebrated in England for centuries.
Even earlier roots for the holiday may lie with the Greeks, and then Romans, who both had Spring festivals to honor the mother goddess.
American beginnings of the Mother's Day holiday began with Julia Ward Howe who in 1872 who began a Mother's Day meeting in Boston on each June 2nd. Several other people in other cities began similar rituals.
At the turn of the 20th Century, Anna Jarvis was a young schoolteacher who lived in Grafton, West Virginia and Philadelphia, PA. Her mother died in 1905, and Anna wanted to honor her memory.
In 1907 Ms. Jarvis began a letter writing campaign to newspapers and politicians to make the 2nd Sunday in May, Mother's Day. Official celebrations of Mother's Day were held in a number of towns and cities in May of the following year.
By 1914, Mother's Day finally received national recognition when President Woodrow Wilson signed a joint resolution recommending its observance. In 1915, Mother's Day was proclaimed a national holiday by President Wilson, to be celebrated on the second Sunday each May.
Ms. Jarvis began the custom of wearing a single white carnation on Mother's Day, since it was her mother's favorite flower.
Commercialization of this holiday by the Flower industry and Greeting Card industry followed soon after.
Sources for this information include an entry in World Book 2000 and an article by Leigh Eric Schmidt in the Journal of American History (Dec 1991) called "The Commercialization of the Calendar."