Mother’s Day is just around the corner, which means you’re probably scrambling to buy your mom a gift as a small token of your appreciation for all she’s done for you.
Held annually on the second Sunday in May, this holiday is often associated with bouquets and breakfast in bed, even expensive jewelry. But the modern motifs of a wholesome holiday are a relatively new concept. In fact, the creator of the holiday, Anna Jarvis, sought to abolish the holiday she created, initially established to be devoted to love and appreciation, since it turned into a capitalist frenzy. Arguably, today’s iteration of Mother’s Day is a shell of its original self, with specific promotions being offered as a way to make money for corporations.
Jarvis’s mission to found Mother’s Day stemmed from a desire to pay tribute to her late mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis.
“Anna remembered, as a young girl, hearing her mother often repeat a simple prayer: ‘I hope and pray that someone, some time, will found a memorial mother’s day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it.’ The holiday’s design was thus a tribute to Mrs. Jarvis,” says Katharine Antolini, Wesleyan assistant professor and author of the book Memorializing Motherhood: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for Control of Mother’s Day.
Anna decided the holiday should be celebrated on the second Sunday in May because it was the date closest to the anniversary of her mother’s death in 1905, Antolini explains. The first official observance of Mother’s Day took place on the morning of May 10, 1908, at the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Graton, West Virginia, where 400 people showed up to honor the mothers in their lives. On the same day, another 15,000 people would participate in the first Mother’s Day in Philadelphia. For 70 minutes, Anna spoke at the Wanamaker Auditorium as part of the celebration.
The next year, the number of celebrants climbed as communities across the nation hosted Mother’s Day services.
“It was obvious to [Anna] that the country’s sons and daughters possessed a ‘mother-hunger in their hearts’ and craved such a day of maternal tribute,” Antolili says. “She, therefore, resolved to devote her life to the holiday’s perpetuation.”
It would take several years, but in 1914, Anna’s life’s work was realized when President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother’s Day an official holiday after the passing of a congressional resolution.
In addition to the day of observance, Anna encouraged people who could not visit their mothers to write letters expressing their gratitude and even designated the white carnation, her mother’s favorite flower, as the official emblem of the holiday, according to Antolini.
“The carnation does not drop its petals when it dies,” Antolini says. “Instead it ‘hugs them to its heart,’ described Jarvis, just as ‘mothers hug their children to their hearts, their mother love never dying.”