History of Mothers Day

Julia Ward Howe in 1872 and Anna Jarvis in 1907 were the best known pioneers who took up the cause of Mother's Day and it was first observed in Philadelphia in 1907. However America only picked it up as the day to honor motherhood at the national level in 1914, setting its date on the second Sunday of May every year. President of America proclaimed it to be a holiday. There are celebrations in the families and the churches in the honor of mothers and grandmothers on this day. Some people even wear carnations on Mother's Day, where a colored carnation denotes that means that one's mother is alive while a white carnation denotes that one's mother is no more. It is said that Mother's Day can be traced back to England where people used honor their mother on Mothering Sunday that came in mid-Lent. Similar celebrations could be traced in Yugoslavia and other nations.

Even before Anna M. Jarvice of Grafton, West Virginia who is credited to be the founder of Mother's Day, several people had been trying to propagate such a day in the honor of mothers and motherhood. Julia Ward Howe made the first known suggestion in the United States in 1872 and held an annual Mother's Day meeting in Boston for several years on 2nd of June. Mary Towles Sasseen of Kentucky conducted Mother's Day celebrations since 1887 while Frank E. Hering of South Bend launched a campaign for the purpose in 1904. Anna Jarvis started a campaign for a nationwide observance of Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May and introduced the custom of wearing a carnation in the honor of her mother. Mother's Day received national recognition on May 9, 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson signed a joint resolution of Congress recommending observance of Mother's Day.

Next year, President Wilson proclaimed Mother's Day as an annual national observance.

Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870
Julia Ward Howe

The first person to fight for an official Mother's Day celebration in the United States was Julia Ward Howe. You may be more familiar with her name as the writer who wrote the words to the Civil War song,

The Battle Hymn of the Republic:

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on."

The modern commercialized celebration of gifts, flowers and candy bears little resemblance to Howe's original idea. Here is the Proclamation that explains, in her own powerful words, the goals of the original Mother's Day in the United States...

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if on some distant Mother's Day, the wishes of Julia Ward Howe could be fulfilled and the human race could celebrate a day when, all over the world, no mother would have to mourn the death of her child lost in war or terrorist attacks...

To all the mother's whose children are fighting in wars - and to mother's whose children are growing up with wars raging around them or with terrorism threatening their safety... Wishes of strength, peace and hope for this Mother's Day...