Today is Mother’s Day! And as i was once again totally showed up by my brother in the gift-giving department, (he gave her a day off with sunshine, a bbq and even a PUPPY. i gave her a coffee mug.) It made me think about this tradition of giving a gift to your mom on the second Sunday in May and i began to wonder where and when and how the current American version of Mother’s Day originated. So, i turned to my favorite source of information: Google.

And here’s what i found.

Versions of mother-appreciation days popped up before the Civil War. Ann Reeves Jarvis founded “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” in the 1860’s to help moms learn how to care for their kids during those turbulent times. During the war, Jarvis changed her focus to “Mother’s Friendship Days” where her and her group of moms would bring soldiers of both sides together in attempts at reconciliation. From the beginning, Mother’s Day was about peace and love and caring for one another, no matter what your political bent was.

In 1870, Julia Howe wrote the “Mother’s Day Proclamation” which was a call to action – asking moms to come together in efforts to support world peace. Julia Howe was a suffragist and an abolitionist and she led the effort of American moms bringing peace to their babies and getting their world out of war. Howe campaigned for a “Mother’s Peace Day” to take place every year on June 2 but it never took off.

Several other “Mother’s Day” efforts took place in the late 19th and early 20th century. Campaigns by women and men, with varying political ideologies attempted to create this national holiday.

It wasn’t until 1908, that the idea of a day dedicated to honoring mothers and motherhood finally became a thing. When Anne Reeves Jarvis died in 1905, her daughter, Anna Jarvis was grief stricken and wanted to find a way to memorialize her. Anna never married and never had children, but in honor of her mother’s peace efforts and her efforts to help American moms care for their babies, she campaigned for a national “Mother’s Day”.

Her efforts caught the eye of a Philadelphia department store owner who financially backed her and the first “Mother’s Day” celebration was held in May 1908. Her sweet celebration was held at a local church, but at the same time, the department store owner held a bigger shindig at one of his stores. Over a thousand people attended.

And in true American fashion – the commercializing of Mother’s Day began.

While Anna’s idea of the day was to wear a white carnation and either visit your mom, or attend church services, department stores quickly saw the money-making opportunity. They emphasized buying your mom a gift to show her how much you loved her and began a Mother’s Day marketing campaign.

Anna innocently kept on promoting her idea, not quite realizing what was going on commercially, and in 1914, succeeded in convincing President Wilson to sign a measure making the second Sunday in May the official Mother’s Day.

Meanwhile, the commercializing of the day by stores and merchants progressed. Anna began to see her day, which was meant to honor her mother and mothers all over the nation, quickly become a day of gift buying and giving. The holiday became a cash cow for merchants and stores all across the nation who stressed the need to give a gift to your mom, rather than just spend time with her.

Anna was devastated. 

By 1920 she started a legal and political campaign to wipe this new, profit-making day off the books. She spent all of her money on legal fees suing the stores and floral businesses that used the name “Mother’s Day” to sell product and campaigned the government to remove it from the American calendar.

She never won. When she died in 1948, she had completely disowned the holiday.

But the story doesn’t totally end there. Even though it has become one of the biggest days for consumer spending, it is also one of the biggest telephone traffic days indicating that lots of sons and daughters still call their mothers to tell them how much they love them. And the date has been used for worthy political efforts as well such as Corretta Scott King’s march for underprivileged women and children in 1968 and other groups using the day to call attention to issues such as childcare and equal rights in the 1970’s.

Anna would be proud. 

But in the spirit of Anna and her mother’s day mission, my brother still smoked me in the gift-giving department. His gift of a day off with family, sunshine and a PUPPY beats my department-store bought mug any day of the week even with its hand-made card that i gave to her LAST week because i’m working a 5 day rotation and am 100 miles away on this auspicious day.

Touché little brother….touché.

Just wait until FATHER’s Day.

We’ll see who’s the better offspring then…..

For more info on Mother’s Day, plus other cool history stuff: https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/mothers-day

And if you think about it, wear a white carnation for all the mothers out there – mothers with children, mothers without children, mothers with 4 legged, furry children, mothers of mothers.

For Anna.