History of Mother's Day

The earliest celebrations of mothers occurred in ancient matriarchal cultures, who worshipped the
Great Mother Goddess. The spring equinox and May Day were associated with fertility and spring
planting. The ancient Greeks and Romans also honored mother goddesses in spring celebrations. In
the British Isles and Celtic Europe, the goddess Brigid was honored with a spring Mother's Day.
Beginning in the 1600s, Britains celebrated a day called Mothering Sunday during Lent, In the
United States Mother's Day was first begun in the 1870s by Julia Ward Howe to honor peace,
motherhood and womanhood, and some of these celebrations continued for thirty years.

Anna M. Jarvis is largely responsible for the Mother's Day we now celebrate annually in the U.S and
many countries in the world. In 1907, two years after the death of her own mother, she began a
campaign to establish a national Mother's Day on the anniversary of her own mother's death on the
second Sunday in May. Within two years, churches in 46 states, Canada and Mexico held Mother's Day
services. In 1914, Congress passed a resolution signed by President Woodrow Wilson establishing a
national Mother's Day.

Anna Jarvis lived to see Mother's Day celebrated in more than 40 countries, although she was unhappy
about the commercialism that came to be associated with the holiday. She objected to the Mother's
Day profits made by the florist industry, and she was opposed to sending greeting cards in lieu of
letters.