by D. Anderson

Created on: May 11, 2009

In the United States, Mother's Day was imported from Britain by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the American Civil War. It was intended not to honor mothers but to unite women of the war. However, it wasn't until the efforts of Ann Jarvis and her daughter that it became a recognized and official holiday.

In 1858 Ann Jarvis expanded on Howe's idea of Mother's Day as an attempt to improve conditions for working mothers. When she died in 1905 her daughter, also named Ann Jarvis, took up the cause but it wasn't until two years after her mother's death that she honored her by handing out 500 white carnations at the church her mother used to attend. Coincidentally, in parts of the UK and Ireland in the 16th century it was believed that a form of Mother's Day existed and was the act of visiting one's mother-church annually (the church of their birth or upbringing).

The first Mother's Day service in the US was on May 10th in 1908, three years after the first Ann Jarvis' death. Jarvis, the daughter, chose a Sunday because she intended for it to be honored as a holy day and even though we have stuck to the tradition of it being on the 2nd Sunday of every May (making it a movable holiday, much like Easter) the commercialization of the day is said to have displeased Jarvis who was later quoted as saying she regretted the push for its nationalization. In 1914 Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day as a day for citizens to show the American flag in honor of mother's who had lost sons to the war. However, over the years it has become a day to honor mothers or mother-type figures. Aunts, grandmothers, wives and family friends have all been recipients of Mother's Day from people who are not actually their child but either have had children or raised children. Often a daughter receives something from her mom to acknowledge that she is now a mother herself.

However, aside from the American history of Mother's Day, the history goes back to pre-Christian origins. Legend has it that this concept of mother-worship comes from an ancient custom in Greece in which a festival to Cybele (great mother) was held. In Ancient Roman times it was held around the vernal equinox and eventually moved to either March 15th or 18th. The Ancient Romans also held a festival called Matronalia (matron) that was dedicated to Juno and mothers were given gifts on this day. Many pre-Christian cultures honored their mothers in some fashion or another

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