Just Askin': Who is the mother behind Mother's Day? Child's promise led to day for moms

Yahoo

11-05-2025

The Enquirer's Just Askin' series aims to answer the questions that no one seems to have an answer for, not even Google.
Mother's Day has been observed for more than 100 years as a celebration of moms across the U.S. and even overseas. But the holiday was originally started because of one mom in particular.
Just Askin': Who was the mother behind Mother's Day?
The answer: There was a certain mother, but it was actually her daughter who is credited with campaigning for and establishing Mother's Day as a holiday celebrated nationwide.
Ann Reeves Jarvis was the mother of 13 children, of whom only four survived into adulthood, and she organized events in which doctors would talk with local mothers about best hygiene practices for keeping their children healthy and combating infant mortality, according to Time Magazine.
However, it was Jarvis' daughter, Anna, who would go on to campaign for the adoption of Mother's Day as a national holiday. Although the younger Jarvis' vision stood in stark contrast with that of her mother.
It was her own mother who inspired Anna Jarvis to campaign for a national Mother's Day.
A 12-year-old Anna Jarvis overheard her mother's prayer for a day honoring mothers, said Katharine Antolini, an assistant professor of history at West Virginia Wesleyan College, who authored the book 'Memorializing Motherhood: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for the Control of Mother's Day.'
When the elder Jarvis died in 1905, Anna Jarvis made a graveside promise to create a day for all mothers, Antolini said. She began a writing campaign in which Jarvis penned letters to any person of influence who could help her accomplish her mission.
The first Mother's Day ceremony was held in May 1908 in Grafton, West Virginia, at the church where Jarvis' mother taught Sunday school classes.
In the years following that first celebration, Antolini said, Jarvis continued campaigning by writing governors and others to promote the holiday, with so much success that by 1911 the second Sunday in May was recognized in every state, at least in some form, as Mother's Day.
The holiday was even adopted by proponents of the women's suffrage movement, Antolini added.
Jarvis selected the second Sunday in May as the date for the holiday because it was the Sunday closest to the anniversary of her mom's death, according to Antolini. She also chose white carnations – her mother's favorite flower – as the emblem of Mother's Day.
Former Cincinnati Mayor Louis Schwab proclaimed the city's observance of Mother's Day in May 1911, according to an Enquirer article from that year. That came less than a month after a similar proclamation from the Ohio governor.
It officially became a national holiday in 1914 when U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation that declared the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. Wilson labeled it 'a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.'
Wilson is often given credit for establishing the holiday, an assertion that Jarvis took issue with, Antolini said. She also disapproved of the commercialization of Mother's Day and the florists and greeting card makers that profited from it.
She also resented groups that used the holiday as a way to promote charity for poor mothers, viewing those as messages of pity and an insult to the one day of the year women are meant to be unconditionally honored, Antolini said.
However, the professor said Jarvis' own mother would likely have embraced groups adopting the holiday to serve the less fortunate.
'This is kind of her baby,' Antolini said of Jarvis, who never married or had children. Antolini said Jarvis' vision of the ideal Mother's Day was a simple homecoming to celebrate one's mother, not everybody's mom.
'She established a holiday through the eyes of a child,' Antolini said.
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This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Who is the mom behind Mother's Day? Graveside promise led to holiday