After the Civil War, abolitionist Julia Ward Howe, writer of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” organized a “Mother’s Day for Peace” in New York City on June 2, 1872, to bring healing and reconciliation after the Civil War. Her proclamation was an “appeal to womanhood throughout the world.”
Julia Ward Howe sponsored Mother’s Day celebrations in Boston for the next ten years but then interest began to fade.
In the following decades, churches and schools popularized special days.
Protestant denominations celebrated an annual Decision Day for people to commit their lives to Christ, a Roll Call Day to encourage church membership, a Missionary Day to raise support, a Children’s Day, and Temperance Sunday to encourage abstinence from alcohol.
The person most responsible for a national Mother’s Day was Anna Jarvis. Anna was from Grafton, West Virginia, the granddaughter of a Baptist minister. She taught Sunday School at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church.
In 1876, after teaching a Bible lesson, Anna Jarvis closed with a prayer: “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mothers day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it.”
Like American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, Anna Jarvis’ mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, organized Mothers’ Day Work Clubs during the Civil War to care for wounded soldiers, both Union and Confederate.
She raised money for medicine, inspected bottled milk, and improved sanitation. She arranged “Mother’s Friendship Day” in 1868 “to reunite families that had been divided during the Civil War.”
Anna Jarvis’ mother also hired women to care for families whose mothers suffered from tuberculosis.
Inspired by her mother’s self-sacrifice and generosity, Anna wanted to honor all mothers.
The second anniversary of her mother’s death was the occasion Anna Jarvis persuaded her church to have a small Mother’s Day service, May 12, 1907. It was so well-received that the church decided to hold it each year on the 2nd Sunday in May.
The next year, Anna organized Mother’s Day events in two places: Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church, where she sent a telegram; and Philadelphia, where she gave a speech in the auditorium of the 12-story Wanamaker Department Store.
John Wanamaker was a retail pioneer and founder of one of the very first department stores. He hung paintings of Christ throughout his store.
With the financial backing of John Wanamaker and H.J. Heinz, maker of “57 varieties” of ketchup, Anna began a letter-writing campaign to ministers and politicians encouraging them to establish a “national” Mothers’ Day.
Contributing to the effort was Notre Dame University’s first basketball coach, Frank Hering.
In 1904, Hering observed a professor passing out penny postcards to students, with the instructions to write “… anything, anything at all as long as it’s to their mothers. We do this every month in this class. One day a month is mother’s day.”
Like Jarvis, Coach Hering proposed “setting aside one day in the year as a nationwide memorial to the memories of mothers and motherhood,” stating: “Throughout history the great men of the world have given their credit for their achievements to their mothers. The Holy Church recognizes this, as does Notre Dame.”
As support increased due to the efforts of churches of all denominations, by 1909, forty-five states observed a Mother’s Day.
People wore white and red Carnations on Sunday to pay tribute to their mothers.
On May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first National Mother’s Day as a: “public expression of … love and reverence for the mothers of our country.”
President Reagan stated in his Mother’s Day Proclamation, 1986: “A Jewish saying sums it up: ‘God could not be everywhere – so He created mothers.'”
English Poet Robert Browning wrote: “Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.”
American poet William Ross Wallace wrote: “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.”
The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 1:5: “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.”
Abraham Lincoln’s mother, Nancy, died when he was nine years old. J.G. Holland’s book, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1866, recorded: “Lincoln said to a friend, with tears in his eyes: ‘All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother!'”
Lincoln wrote: “I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”
On February 3, 1983, at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, President Reagan stated: “I have a very special old Bible. And alongside a verse in the Second Book of Chronicles there are some words, handwritten, very faded by now. And believe me, the person who wrote these words was an authority. Her name was Nelle Wilson Reagan. She was my mother.”
Quotes by unknown authors are:
“Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.”
“A mom’s hug lasts long after she lets go.”
On Mother’s Day, May 8, 2020, President Donald Trump proclaimed: “We celebrate the exceptional mothers in our lives … Whether they became mothers through birth, adoption, foster care, or other means, these women are deserving of our unending gratitude and praise this day and every day … In our earliest days, our mothers provide us with love and nurturing care. They often know our talents before we do, and they selflessly encourage us to use these God-given gifts to pursue our biggest dreams.”
William J. Federer is the author of American Minute–Notable Events of American Significance Remembered on the Date They Occurred
