The original Mother’s Day started in the 1850s when a West
Virginia woman’s organizer, Ann Reeves Jarvis, started mother’s work clubs to improve
sanitary conditions, address milk contamination and lower infant mortality. The
women’s groups took care of wounded soldiers in the Civil War. After the Civil
War the “Mother’s Day Proclamation” of 1870 called on women to work for peace.
The more traditional Mother’s Day observances began in 1908 and President
Woodrow Wilson set aside the second Sunday in May in 1914 for the first
official Mother’s Day. Anna Jarvis, daughter of founder Ann Reeves Jarvis,
hated the commercialization of the holiday and even brought lawsuits against
those who set out to raise money on the holiday.
To learn more about the original Mother’s Day celebrations
in America, see:
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