Mother’s Day is Sunday May 9. These celebrations can be traced back as far as ancient Greek and Roman festivals honoring mother goddesses; and an early Christian Lenten festival, “Mothering Sunday”.
As celebrated in the United States, Mother’s Day predates the Civil War when Ann Reeves Jarvis promoted “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” to teach local women how to properly care for their children. In 1868 Jarvis organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” at which mothers gathered with former Union and Confederate soldiers to promote reconciliation.
Suffragette and abolitionist Julia Ward Howe wrote in her 1870 “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” a call for mothers to unite in promoting world peace. In 1873 Howe campaigned for a “Mother’s Peace Day” to be celebrated every June 2.
After the death of Ann Reeves Jarvis, her daughter, Ann Jarvis, honored her mother by staging the first official Mother’s Day Celebration in May 1908 with the help of Philadelphia department store owner, John Wannamaker. Ann Jarvis established the International Mother’s Day Association to promote the idea. She dedicated her life to the cause with massive letter writing campaigns to everyone of influence worldwide. In 1914 president Woodrow Wilson officially established the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
By the 1920s as Mother’s Day was embraced by the florists, department stores and candy makers that Jarvis used to promote the day, she became disenchanted with the commercialization of what she envisioned as a private day to visit and care for mothers. She spent her life’s savings campaigning AGAINST the day she had created until she died in 1948.
Whether your Mother’s Day is lavish or simple we hope you all connect with your mothers in some meaningful way, and we thank these women for their efforts on behalf of mothers everywhere!