Mother's Day

Mother’s Day is a celebration that honours mothers and motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society.    It is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, many of these trace back to ancient festivals, like the Greek cult to Cybele, the Roman festival of Hilaria, or the Christian Mothering Sunday celebration. 

However, the modern celebration is an American invention, and not directly descended from ancient celebrations. 

Julia Ward

Modern Mother’s Day is first inspired by Julia Ward Howe.   Born in New York, on 27^th May, 1819, to Samuel Ward and Julia Rush Cutler, Julia Ward lived through the American Civil War ( 1861 – 1865 ).  After the war, Julia Ward focused her activities on the causes of pacifism and women’s suffrage. 

In 1870 she wrote her Mother’s Day Proclamation, asking women from the world to join for world’s peace.

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace, Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And at the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions,

The great and general interests of peace.

On 2^nd June, 1872, Julia lead a celebration in New York City.  The observation continued in Boston for about 10 years, but then died out.  

She died of pneumonia on 17^th October 1910 in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

Anna Marie Jarvis

Anna Marie Jarvis was born in Webster, West Virginia on 1^st May, 1864.  She  graduated from Augusta Female Seminary ( now Mary Baldwin College ) in 1883.

Anna’s mother Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis founded Mother’s Day Work Clubs in Webster, Philippi, Pruntytown, Fetterman and Grafton to improve sanitary and health conditions.  MDWC also treated wounds, fed, and clothed both Union and Confederate soldiers with neutrality during the Civil War.

Ann Jarvis died on 9^th May, 1905.  On Sunday 12^th May, 1907, 2 years after her mother’s death, Anna held a memorial to her mother in the Andrew’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia.   On Sunday 10^th May, 1908, a larger service was held in the Wanamaker Auditorium, Philadephia.  In 1909, a larger celebration was held in New York.

In 1910, Mother’s Day declared holiday in the state of West Virginia.

On 8^th May, 1914, the Congress passed a law designating the 2^nd Sunday in May as Mother’s day.  The Andrew’s Methodist Episcopal Church became The International Mother’s Day Shrine on 15^th May, 1962, also a National Historic Landmark. 

Anna never married, and had no children.  She died in West Chester Pennsylvania on 24^th November 1948.  She is recognized as the founder of the modern Mother’s Day in the USA.

In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved a stamp commemorating the holiday.

Carnations were Ann Maria Jarvis’ favourite flower.  It became a custom of wearing a carnation on Mother’s Day, a red one if one’s mother is still living, and a white one if she was dead.