Who made Mother's Day came about?

Answer 1

The idea of Mother's Day is thought to have begun with an idea by a young Appalachian homemaker, Anna Jarvis, who from 1858 had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers' Work Days. She organised women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbours.

Jarvis's ideas influenced suffragette Julia Ward Howe to call for Pacifism and Disarmament by mothers. Ward Howe proclaimed the first Mothers' Day in Boston in 1870, calling for it to be celebrated annually from 1872. Commonly, early activities involved groups of mothers meeting, whose common factor was that their sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War. Julia Ward Howe was unable to obtain formal recognition of a Mothers' Day for Peace.

Anna Jarvis' daughter Anna was influenced by both her own mother's work, and the work of Julia Ward Howe. After her mother died, the younger Anna Jarvis started her own campaign to start a Memorial Day for women. The first Mothers' Day was celebrated as a memorial to mothers in Grafton, West Virginia, on 10 May 1908, in the church where the elder Anna Jarvis had taught Sunday School. After this, the custom caught on, spreading eventually to 45 states (and later other nations). Finally the holiday was declared officially by states beginning in 1912, and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day. Mother's Day is not to be confused with "Mothering Sunday" in the UK. Celebrated in March every year, this celebration of mothers began when people set aside this day to attend church services to honour the Virgin Mary. It gradually developed into the festival it is today, as honouring mothers everywhere.