Mother’s Day was created to give children of all ages a day on which they could honor their mothers. It is celebrated on the second Sunday in May in the United States and in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Italy, and Turkey. Other countries celebrate their version of Mother’s Day at different times throughout the year, but how the day is celebrated is similar throughout the world.
How Mother’s Day began, along with exactly who started it, is not an established fact. Several historians give credit to different people; usually women. The two most often named are Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis.
Best known for writing the famous poem, The Battle Hymn of the Republic during the American Civil War, Julia Ward Howe was often asked to speak publicly about her experiences with the war. What she saw during that time influenced her belief that peace and equality were the two most important causes in the world. When war again invaded the world in 1870 with the start of the Franco-Prussian War, she called for women to rise up and oppose all war. Unfortunately her attempt, known as a Mother’s Day for Peace, was not successful.
Another theory involves a young Appalachian homemaker who, in 1858, attempted to improve sanitation by establishing what she called Mothers’ Work Days. Her efforts continued throughout the period of the Civil War as she worked for more sanitary conditions on both sides. Her name was Anna Jarvis. Upon her death her daughter took up the attempt to establish a day for children to honor their mothers.
Jarvis’s daughter,who was also named Anna Jarvis, organized the first memorial service for mothers on May 10, 1907. It was held at her mother’s church in West Virginia. Then she, along with many others began a letter writing campaign to President Woodrow Wilson to establish a national Mother’s Day. President Wilson signed the proclamation in 1914, establishing a national observance of Mother’s Day every year on the second Sunday in May.
While the tradition of Mother’s Day was just beginning, it was customary to celebrate the holiday with carnations; a pink carnation honored a mother who was living and a white carnation honored a mother that was deceased
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