The Past of Mother’s Day
Mothering Sunday, an ancient Christian holiday, is the most obvious source of inspiration for Mother’s Day. Ancient Greeks and Romans observed it by holding festivities in honor of the mother deities Rhea and Cybele.
This feast, which came on the fourth Sunday of Lent and was historically a prominent ritual in Britain and other parts of Europe, reminded people of their “mother church,” or the primary church near their home. An exceptional service.
Mothering Sunday evolved into a more secular holiday over time, and children began presenting small presents, like flowers, to their mothers as a way of showing them how much they appreciated them. After a period of decline in popularity, this custom was blended with American Mother’s Day in the 1930s and 1940s.
Anna Jarvis made Mother’s Day a national holiday
The formal Mother’s Day celebration emerged in the 1900s, partly because to the work of Anna Jarvis, the daughter of Ann Reeves Jarvis. After her mother passed away in 1905, Anna Jarvis established Mother’s Day to honor the sacrifices mothers make for their children.
With funding from Philadelphia department store magnate John Wanamaker, she planned the first Mother’s Day celebration in history, which was held in May 1908 in a Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia. Thousands of people attended Mother’s Day celebrations held at one of Wanamaker’s retail locations in Philadelphia.
After the inaugural Mother’s Day was so popular, Jarvis, who never married and had no children, made the decision to officially put her celebration on the national calendar. She launched a major letter-writing campaign to prominent politicians and the media, claiming that American holidays were unjustly biased toward the achievements of men and advocating for the establishment of a dedicated day to honor mothers.
By the time Jarvis founded the Mother’s Day International Association in 1912 to further her cause, Mother’s Day was observed on a yearly basis in numerous states, municipalities, and churches. President Woodrow Wilson’s 1914 signing of a bill declaring the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day was evidence of her persistence.
