A brief history of Mother’s Day

Compiled from various sources
by Elna Seabrooks
Staff Writer
    Motherhood has been celebrated since prehistoric times and female goddess figures have been found in many archeological digs. In ancient times, spring mothering festivals celebrated the rebirth of the land and the beginning of the most fertile time of the year to recognize and honor the goddess in all women.
    Back in the seventeenth century Mothering Sunday in England was the fourth Sunday in Lent when families gave mothers flowers and gifts.
    Here in America, early attempts to have a day to honor mothers were mixed with woman’s suffrage and peace movements. Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the words to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” suggested the idea of an International Mother’s day to celebrate peace and motherhood in 1872.
    But it was the mother of Anna Jarvis, Mrs. Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis, who helped develop the “Mothers Friendship Day” to assist in the healing of the nation after the Civil War and who worked on establishing Mother’s Day as a national celebration. On May 12, 1907, Miss Jarvis held a memorial service at her late mother’s church in Grafton, West Virginia. She passed out more than 500 white carnations, one for each mother in the congregation. The white carnation was her most favorite because it represented the purity of a mother’s heart. A white carnation was worn to honor deceased mothers and a red one to honor a living mother.
    Her tireless campaign is the reason we have a formal holiday. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared that Mother’s Day should be celebrated as a national holiday on the second Sunday in May.
    Over time, the day was expanded to include others, such as grandmothers and aunts, who played mothering roles. What had originally been primarily a day of honor became associated with the sending of cards and the giving of gifts. Ironically, in protest against its commercialization, Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday she had brought into being. It is celebrated in various ways throughout the world as early as February in Norway and as late as November in Russia.
    It is one of the most popular of all the holidays and is responsible for a range of special gifts from the homemade variety with breakfast in bed to lavish extravagances and heartfelt phone calls.
    In 1912, Anna Jarvis trademarked the phrases “second Sunday in May” and “Mother’s Day,” and created the Mother’s Day International Association.  She was specific about the location of the apostrophe. It was to be a singular possessive, for each family to honor their mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world. It is also the spelling used by President Woodrow Wilson in the law making official the holiday in the U.S., by the U.S. Congress on bills and by other American presidents on their declarations and proclamations to recognize and emphasize the pivotal role mothers play in the world and in their families.
    Happy Mother’s Day!