The History of Mother’s Day

 Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis organized several “Mothers Day Work Clubs” in the 1850s to improve the poor sanitation and health conditions in Appalachia.

Few people realize that Mother’s Day has its roots in 19th Century activism and feminism.

Mother’s Day began:

• In 1858, when Anna Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker, organized “Mother’s Work Days” to improve the sanitation and avert deaths from disease-bearing insects and seepage of polluted water.
• In 1872, when Boston poet, pacifist and women’s suffragist Julia Ward Howe established a special day for mothers –and for peace– not long after the bloody Franco-Prussian War.
• In 1905, when Anna Jarvis died. Her daughter, also named Anna, decided to memorialize her mother’s lifelong activism, and began a campaign that culminated in 1914 when Congress passed a Mother’s Day resolution.

Read more about the fascinating activist history of Mother’s Day at the National Women’s History Project.