In America, the tradition began in 1908 with a woman named Anna Jarvis. While not a mother herself, she established the day to honor her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, who had passed away three years prior.
This commitment to pay homage to and help other women ran in the Jarvis family. Living in West Virginia before the Civil War, Ann had an idea for a community-service based program to help mothers in need of assistance. This concept developed into the Mother’s Day Work Clubs, a program that taught women how to care for their children. Ann also created “Mothers’ Friendship Day” to assist in promoting peace between the Confederate and Union soldiers after the Civil War.
In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother’s Day an official holiday. The yearly celebration would take place on the second Sunday in May. Anna’s original vision of Mother’s Day was a day to honor her mother Ann, but once it became a nationally recognized day, things changed dramatically. The notion of celebrating mom on Mother’s Day caught on quickly and became heavily commercialized with cards and flowers.
After seeing a Mother’s Day Salad on the menu in ar tearoom in Philadelphia in the early 1900s, Anna realized the day had become nothing but a marketing scheme. She then began to file lawsuits, hold protests, and demand face-to-face meetings with the president.
In the end, she spent decades fighting a no-win battle to claim back the day as her own using every penny of her small inheritance.
**SOURCE: https://www.rd.com/
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