The History of Mother’s Day
While Mother’s Day celebrations can be trailed all the way back to Ancient Roman times, Mother’s Day celebrations did not begin in America until the 1800’s. Before the Civil War in 1865. Women went to Mother’s Day Work Clubs to learn methods to properly take care of their children. In 1868, a woman by the name of Ann Jarvis started Mother’s Friendship Day to share the importance of compromise.
After Ann Jarvis died in 1905, her daughter Anna Jarvis came up with the idea of Mother’s Day to respect around the world. In 1908, Anna Jarvis set up the first Mother’s Day celebration at a local church in West Virginia. Jarvis continued to promote her Mother’s Day idea by writing letters to newspapers and politicians about making the holiday national.
In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed into practice that Mother’s Day would officially be the second Sunday every year in May. While Miss Anna Jarvis was overjoyed that her holiday had become official, she was quite overwhelmed with how commercialized it had become in such a short amount of time. She wanted Mother’s Day to be a day of celebration between mother’s and their own families. But stores and other shops latched onto the holiday like glue and it eventually became whst it is today. While we still honor our mother’s, it has also become a big money – making day for stores and businesses.