It began in 1908 as a campaign of one Anna Jarvis to memorialize her own deceased mother Ann Reeves Jarvis, a peace activist who tended wounded soldiers on both sides in the Civil War.
Congress originally rejected the idea of making Mother's Day a national holiday because - well, because women, no doubt - and "joked" they'd have to then proclaim a Mother-in-law's Day. Anna Jarvis didn't let that get in her way. She appealed directly to the populace, and within a few years, every state observed a Mother's Day holiday. So, in 1910 finally, Woodrow Wilson signed it into being for the whole of the country.
Anna was happy for a short while, until it began to get commercialized. People were not celebrating as she intended, dammit. She said people should honor their mothers with handwritten letters proclaiming their love and gratitude. So, a ticked-off Anna organized boycotts of the holiday that she'd pressed so hard for, and threatened lawsuits against companies like Hallmark, calling them “charlatans, bandits, pirates” and even termites.
“A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world,” Jarvis reportedly said. “And candy! You take a box to Mother – and then eat most of it yourself. A petty sentiment.”Anna had started a tradition of associating carnations with Mother's Day by having them handed out to mothers in the church where her mother had taught Sunday school. (I've jumped Wikipedia now and gone to The Deseret News and The Wichita Eagle.) Already ticked off that President Wilson was getting credit for the holiday, she now became irritated that the American War Mothers were selling carnations to raise money for their organization. She'd crashed a candymakers convention in Philadelphia in 1923, and in 1925, she crashed an American War Mothers meeting.
"That time, Jarvis was pulled away screaming and arrested for disturbing the peace."
[...]
"By some accounts, she spent the rest of her life trying to take back, actually rescind, Mother’s Day."
Damn, it's hard to get people to do things the way you want them to. I wondered if Anna had any children. If she did, I wondered if she had to sit them down around the kitchen table every second Sunday in May and have them write out an ode of appreciation and gratitude.
Then, I read: "As far as we know, [...] Anna Jarvis herself was not a wife or mother."
Lucky kids.
Then, I read: "As far as we know, [...] Anna Jarvis herself was not a wife or mother."
Lucky kids.
Anna probably would have had a cow if she'd seen some of today's cards - I'm thinking of Hallmark's Maxine. In fact, Anna probably could have been the model for Maxine.
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