Steps to Mother's Day

How it all began.

Mothering Sunday in England.

Julia Ward Howe organized Mother's Meetins in l872.

Anna Jarvis started a campaign.

Daughter, Ann Jarvis, took up the gauntlet.

1914 -- President Woodrow Wilson made official announcement.

1914-Woodrow Wilson

In 1907, a woman from Philadelphis, named Anna Jarvis, started a campaigh for National Mother's Day to be held on the second day f May in honor of her mother. Her mother who started the idea died in l905. She gave her daughter the idea after she organized a "Mother's Friendship Day: to heal lingering wounds of the Civil War.

Finally in l914, Woodrow Wilson made an official pronouncement proclaiming Mother's Day a National Holiday. West Va. was the first state to recognize the holiday which spread beyond the USA to countries such as Australia and Denmark which also celebrate Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May.

Anna Marie Jarvis (May 1, 1864-November 24, 1946)

The daughter was born in Web ster County, West V irginia Her family moved to Grafton, WV in her childhood. A year after her mother's death, she held a memorial to her mother on May 12, 1907. and then went on a quest to make Mother's Day a recognized holiday. She succeeded in making this nationally recognized in 1914.Later in life she fought against commercialization of the holiday with less success.

She died in West Chester, PA, recognized as the mother of the Mother's Day Holiday in the USA.

Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis --Sept. 30, 1832-May 9, 1905

Anna Jarvis was the name of two women: mother and daughter. Both played a real part in the establishing of Mother's Day.

Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis was born on Sept. 30, 1832 in Culpepper, Virgina. She worked around what is now West Virginia to promote worker health and safety concerns. During the American Civil War, she organized women to tend to the needs of the wounded of both sides. After the way she became active in the promotion of Mother's Day, a holiday at that time involved with the causes of pacifism and social activism. She organized meetings of mothers of soldiers of both sides of the late war.