The History and Meaning of Mother's Day: How the Hallmark Holiday Got Its Start

The second Sunday in May brings a day for which fathers and children everywhere scramble to prepare every year. Breakfast in bed, flowers, handmade cards, and presents usually signify Mother's Day. This honoring of Mom and her hard work usually brings a smile to her face. Being able to celebrate motherhood and thanking Moms for all they do has become a national holiday.

Other cultures have had holidays celebrating motherhood since ancient times. The ancient Greeks and Romans had their own celebrations to honor the mothers of their gods. In the 1600s, Mothering Sunday was the fourth Sunday of Lent when parishioners returned to their mother church to worship. Later it became a day when servants were sent from their duties to spend the day with their mothers and families. It is generally celebrated today as Britain's version of America's Mother's Day.

Mother's Day in the United States was first conceived around 1870 in Boston, Massachusetts. Following her experiences in the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe attempted to publish a push for peace at international peace conferences. In 1872 she began promoting her new idea for a Day of Peace for Mothers. She issued her "Mother's Day Proclamation" in an attempt to gather women together for the cause. In 1873, eighteen cities in America participated in this Day of Peace. It was most often a group of women whose families were affected by the Civil War that gathered to discuss the preference for peace. This continued annually for several years, but people eventually lost interest and the idea died down. Howe never gave up her push for disarmament and pacifism.

In 1907, Mother's Day was brought to life yet again by Anna Jarvis in Grafton, West Virginia. She used the day to commemorate her mother's death in 1905. Her own mother had been an active participant in the previous Mother's Day campaigns for peace. She decided to attempt to breathe life back into the idea in honor of her own Mother's passion for the cause. In 1908, Jarvis organized a larger event at Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton. The church there is now the International Mother's Day Shrine in honor of its significance.

The idea then began to catch on and as soon as 1912 it became an official holiday in some states. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared that there would be a national holiday dedicated to mothers. A flag could be flown in honor of those mothers who had lost their sons in war.

In a matter of a few years, the holiday had become rampant and commercialized. Anna Jarvis herself spoke in opposition to it because it seemed to hold no more of the original intent. Despite her best attempts to return the holiday to its roots, Mother's Day remains one of the most commercially prevalent of all the holidays.