The Mother’s Day that we celebrate today with cards, candy, and flowers is not the same as the Mother’s Day that was first conceived of by the women who worked to establish it. Ann Reeve Jarvis (1832-1905) was one of four women (including Juliet Ward Howe, Juliet Calhoun Blakely, and Mary Towles Sassen) who advocated for a day for mothers. These women wanted to see mothers become a political force as community organizers. As mothers themselves, they believed that other mothers, out of concern for their own children, would be strong advocates for peace and justice and addressing vital community needs. The story of how the change came about is a fascinating bit of history about a mother, Ann Reeve Jarvis, and her daughter, Anna Maria Jarvis.
Ann Reeve Jarvis and Mother’s Day Work Clubs
Wife of a successful merchant in rural West Virginia, Ann Reeve Jarvis birthed thirteen children in seventeen years. The loss of nine of these to disease and sicknesses, such as typhoid, diphtheria, and measles, inspired her to organize against unsanitary conditions. In 1858, she began Mother’s Day Work Clubs in her town and server neighboring ones that raised money for medicines, to pay for help when mothers were ill, and which developed milk inspections.
During the Civil War, this area of West Virginia provided soldiers to both sides of the conflict. At one point, General George McClellan commandeered living quarters in Ann Jarvis’s home. However, all through the war, her Mother’s Clubs claimed neutrality and helped the soldiers stationed around them regardless of the side they fought on. After the war in 1865, she organized a Mother’s Friendship Day and despite threats of violence, brought together soldiers from both sides in reconciliation. She became a popular speaker on such topics as hygiene and recreation for children.
Anna Maria Jarvis and the Founding of Mother’s Day
When she died, her unmarried daughter, Anna Maria Jarvis, a high school teacher, vowed to found a memorial to mothers. As an unmarried woman without children, she visualized the day, not as her mother and other early advocates had—as a day of action by women who were mothers, but rather as a day to memorialize mothers’ sacrifices. She saw it as a “holy day” on which we’d remember our “mother’s “quiet grace.” Anna Jarvis described it this way:
To revive the dormant filial love and gratitude we owe to those who gave us birth. To be a home tie for the absent. To obliterate family estrangement. To create a bond of brotherhood through the wearing of a floral badge. To make us better children by getting us closer to the hearts of our good mothers. To brighten the lives of good mothers. To have them know we appreciate them, though we do not show it as often as we ought… Mothers Day is to remind us of our duty before it is too late. This day is intended that we may make new resolutions for a more active thought to our dear mothers. By words, gifts, acts of affection, and in every way possible, give her pleasure, and make her heart glad every day, and constantly keep in memory Mothers Day.
The Battle for Mother’s Day
With the support of John Wanamaker, H. J. Heinz, and other wealthy patrons, and her own tireless battle, the first official Mother’s Day was held on May 10th, 1908 in Philadelphia. In 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed the official resolution establishing the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
Almost instantly, however, the day she envisioned was usurped by merchants out for profit. Card makers, candy makers, and florists saw the opportunity for the holiday to rival Thanksgiving and Christmas. By 1922, Anna Jarvis was calling for a boycott of florists who raised the price of white carnations , the flower she had chosen as a remembrance, on Mother’s Day.
To have Mothers’ Day the burdensome, wasteful, expensive gift day that Christmas and other special days have become, is not our pleasure,” she wrote. “If the American People are not willing to protect Mothers’ Day from the hordes of money schemers that would overwhelm it with their schemes, then we shall cease having a Mothers’ Day.
Over time Anna Jarvis became obsessive over the ownership and the way the holiday became changed. Despite creating numerous public disturbances and spending all her wealth, her efforts to fight commercialization met failure on every front and resulted in her arrest on several occasions.
As a result, in 1945, she was deemed mentally incompetent and committed to Marshall Square Sanitarium in West Chester, Pennsylvania. In an ironic twist, her upkeep was paid for by people representing the greeting card and floral industries.
Today we celebrate the commercialized holiday Anna Jarvis initiated and then fought so hard to stop and which little resembles the action-oriented mother’s clubs her mother founded. But as we look around at all the threats from climate change, nuclear armament, and unending wars, and wonder if our children will survive the future, perhaps it is time to revive the Mother’s Day Work Clubs as they were originally intended.
What do you think?
I welcome your thoughts and comments.
Sources
Memorializing Mother’s Day: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for Control of Mother’s Day by Katharine Lane Antollini
Mother’s Day: Why the Woman who Invented it, Regretted it.
West Virginia Women in History
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