Mothers Day 2007 in the USA

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Mother's Day
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Mother’s Day - USA history

In the USA the first Anna Jarvis (there were two involved in Mother’s Day) began a community campaign called "Mother’s Work Day" 150 years ago. It was Julia Ward Howe who first proposed Mother’s Day in 1872.

She held special Mother’s Day events every year in Boston Mass. In 1907 Anna Jarvis’s daughter (also Anna) of Philadelphia following on from her mother’s efforts, campaigned for a national Mother’s Day; she persuaded her mother’s church to celebrate it ands the following year her own church in Philadelphia followed suit.

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European History

She and her supporters wrote to influential businessmen and politicians and by 1911 she succeeded in getting the day celebrated in almost every state of the USA. In 1914 the US President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the national holiday to be celebrated on the 2nd Sunday of May.

Interestingly the commercialisation of Mother’s Day had apparently overwhelmed the original concept so that by 1923 the disillusioned Anna Jarvis petitioned unsuccessfully to prevent a Mother’s Day festival taking place.

This special day is marked by the giving of flowers (which harks back to the ancient symbol for spring fertility) and the giving or sending of cards.

"The phrase "working mother" is redundant." – Jane Sellman