On This Day - May 10th 1908
The first Mothers' Day is celebrated.
The concept of Mothers' Day (now usually known as Mother's Day) is believed to have had its origins in an idea by a young Appalachian homemaker, Anna Jarvis, who from 1858 had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers' Work Days. She organised women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbours.
Jarvis's ideas influenced suffragette Julia Ward Howe to call for Pacifism and Disarmament by mothers. Ward Howe proclaimed the first Mothers' Day in Boston in 1870, calling for it to be celebrated annually from 1872. Commonly, early activities involved groups of mothers meeting, whose common factor was that their sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War. Julia Ward Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mothers' Day for Peace.
Anna Jarvis' daughter, also named Anna Jarvis, was influenced by both her own mother's work, and the work of Julia Ward Howe. After her mother died, the younger Anna Jarvis started her own crusade to found a memorial day for women. The first Mothers' Day was celebrated as a memorial to mothers in Grafton, West Virginia, on 10 May 1908, in the church where the elder Anna Jarvis had taught Sunday School. After this, the custom caught on, spreading eventually to 45 states (and later other nations). Finally the holiday was declared officially by states beginning in 1912, and on 9 May 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day.
Although Mothers' Day is celebrated by most countries on the second Sunday in May, much of South America, Bahrain, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates uphold the tradition on May 10th annually. Various other countries honour their mothers at other set dates through the year.