I always thought that Mother's Day was first begun in the 19th century
by Julia Ward Howell, as a day when mothers went outside and rang bells
for peace.
Wendy Griffin
Heather McKenzie wrote:
> >From www.writetools.com/women
>
> Mother's Day Founder Anna Jarvis
>
> Anna Jarvis idolized her mother
> and took her death in 1905 particularly hard. Anna's
> mother had been both the
> cornerstone of her family and an influential community
> volunteer. When her mother died,
> Anna wanted to commemorate her in some
> meaningful way. Two years later,
> Anna was allowed to hold a tribute to her mother at
> their local church, and that small
> service is commonly acknowledged as the first
> Mother's Day celebration in the
> United States (many other countries have set aside a
> special day for mothers). From
> that point on, Anna was obsessed with the idea of a
> special annual commemorative day
> for mothers. She wrote thousands of letters,
> distributed brochures, spent tons
> of money, and lobbied influential people until at last
> �
> seven years later in 1914 �
> President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday in
> May as the official Mother's Day
> holiday. But the story doesn't end there. Soon after
> it was
> established, the holiday began to
> take on commercial overtones, with candy, cards, and
> flowers promoted as appropriate
> gifts. Anna had selected the white carnation � her
> mother's favorite � as the
> official Mother's Day flower and she was horrified and
> angered in 1923 when she
> discovered that carnations were being sold at a
> Mother's Day
> convention to raise money. She got
> so upset, in fact, and raised such a ruckus that she
> was arrested for disturbing the
> peace. That same year she filed a lawsuit to stop a
> Mother's Day festival. Anna had
> never intended to establish May's biggest gift-giving
> event. In her vision, Mother's Day
> was a personal, loving event: "I wanted it to be a day
> of
> sentiment, not profit." Her
> disgust and anger fueled the second major obsession of
> her
> life, the attempt to abolish the
> commercialism of Mother's Day. Despite spending her
> entire inheritance on the effort,
> Anna was unsuccessful. The woman who gave us
> Mother's Day and then tried to
> take it away never married and never had children. She
> was born on May 1, 1864.
> ===
> "Do you have an opinion?
> A mind of your own?"
> -Garbage
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