Anna Jarvis – The "Mother" of Mother's Day

The Origins of Mother's Day in America

Maybe it's fitting that the day on which Americans commend moms has an odd arrangement of guardians: President Woodrow Wilson is normally observed as the 'father' of Mother's Day — for signing a decree on May 9, 1914, declaring the second Sunday of May 'an open articulation of our adoration and veneration for the moms of our nation' — while marketing specialist Anna Jarvis is typically seen as the 'mother' of Mother's Day, for creating the movement that led to the announcement.

It was on May 10, 1908, that Jarvis sent 500 white carnations to Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in her hometown of Grafton, W.Va., to honor her late mother Ann. That date, on which she also held a celebration in Philadelphia, where she lived at the time, is viewed as America's first Mother's Day celebration. In 2018, Mother's Day was marked on Sunday, May 13. However, Jarvis wasn't the only person to attempt to start a holiday dedicated to mothers.

One notable individual who might also have a claim to that fame: Jarvis' own mother, had conceived such an idea in the mid-nineteenth century. Her vision for Mother's Day, however, seemed very different from the gift-driven event of modern times.

It's not that Anna Jarvis hid the fact that she got the idea from her mother. As she spread the word about the event, she always traced it back to the moment when, in 1876, she heard her mother present the following prayer after teaching a Sunday School lesson: 'I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will establish a memorial mother's day commemorating her for the inimitable service she renders to humanity in every field of life.' When her mother died in 1905, she vowed to fulfill that dream.

Nevertheless, what the elder Jarvis likely had in mind was something different from what her daughter eventually brought to reality. Evidence suggests that the original idea was for a 'Moms' Day' — a day for mothers, plural, not a day for one's own mother — on which mothers would come together for a day of service to help other mothers who were less fortunate than they were, according to Katharine Lane Antolini, an assistant professor of history and gender studies at West Virginia Wesleyan College and author of Memorializing Motherhood: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for the Control of Mother's Day (Antolini, 2014).

Why would the senior Jarvis have focused her idea for a commemoration of motherhood on this idea of community service? The reason was a heartbreaking one.

Her experience of motherhood had been infused with sorrow. Of the 13 children that she bore, only four lived to adulthood. Her story was common; an estimated 15 to 30% of infants in that Appalachian region died before their first birthday throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century, largely due to epidemics that were spread by poor sanitary conditions, according to Antolini's book. In 1858, while she was pregnant for the sixth time, Jarvis enlisted the help of her brother Dr. James Reeves, who was involved in treating victims of the typhoid fever epidemic, to try to improve the situation. They organized events at which doctors were invited to lead discussions with local mothers on the latest hygiene practices that could keep their children healthy. They called the events Mothers' Day Work Clubs.

Transition from Community Service to a National Holiday

However, when it came time for Jarvis to lead the charge for a national day for mothers, she abandoned that idea of educating mothers. Perhaps it was because she was not a mother herself, Antolini suggests, and therefore, 'she was unable to be a leader for a holiday that encourages mothers to be socially active.' (Antolini, 2014)

Furthermore, she might have figured a more uplifting tone would be easier to market broadly. 'She didn't want it to be turned into a poor people's day,' says Antolini. 'She thought even poor mothers were rich if they had their children's love.' (Antolini, 2014)

As the popularity of the event spread, several others came forward to claim they had been the first to start celebrating mothers.

For example, around the same time Ann Jarvis started Mother's Day Work Clubs to prevent infants from dying prematurely, 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' writer Julia Ward Howe had started a 'Mother's Peace Day,' inspired by the Civil War and subsequent Franco-Prussian War, on which mothers supported antiwar efforts so that their sons wouldn't die prematurely. Additionally, city leaders of Henderson, Ky., argued that Mary Towels Sasseen should get credit for starting a day to honor mothers right in 1887, at which point Sasseen was a 24-year-old school principal. She would even curate a book of songs, poems, and readings for schools that wanted to organize tributes to mothers. And if you asked the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the organization would say Mother's Day started in 1904 with its member Frank Hering, a football coach and Notre Dame faculty member, who required students to write a note to their mothers once a month.

The Role of Social Changes in the Spread of Mother's Day

Antolini notes that some historians also point out the curious timing of Jarvis' version of Mother's Day taking hold at the beginning of the twentieth century: people had been talking about the idea for decades, yet the event gained national attention just when more women were beginning to take jobs outside the home, and some experts see the embrace of a celebration of motherhood as a reaction against that change.

Regardless, when it came to championing the idea, Jarvis proved that she certainly deserved the credit. Her marketing background likely helped, Antolini argues. By 1912, she had left her job in the business and started Mother's Day International Association. Partnerships with florists and a successful letter-writing campaign to state governors helped the event get recognized at the state and eventually federal level.

The Later Years of Anna Jarvis

And for someone who started such a joyful day, her life ended in a sorrowful way. Her Mother's Day campaign was funded primarily by her inheritance, and she came to resent the way that florists and candy makers were making a fortune from the idea without crediting her. Jarvis came to feel that the day was being used as 'a means of profiteering,' as the New York Times reported on May 18, 1923.

Antolini believes that battling with others for full credit for starting Mother's Day was a key factor in Jarvis eventually ending up 'broke, blind, and in an asylum.' (Antolini, 2014)

She died in 1948 and was buried next to her mother.

References

• Antolini, K. L. (2014). Memorializing Motherhood: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for the Control of Mother's Day. West Virginia Wesleyan College.