History of Mother's Day

Celebrated in the United States , Canada , Australia , Belgium and the Netherlands , Mother's Day is a a day to celebrate mothers and all they do for us! It is usually celebrated on the second Sunday in May. In the United Kingdom and many other countries it is known as Mothering Sunday , a Christian holiday on the fourth Sunday of Lent . Traditionally mother's will receive cards, flowers, breakfast in bed, and other treats on this day.

The ancient Greeks celebrated a holiday in honor of Rhea, the mother of the gods, and also Cybea, but her parties got a bit out of hand and her followers were eventually banished from Rome. Celtic traditions honored the goddess Brigid (later St. Brigid) with a spring time feastival which occured when the first milk of the ewes. In 17th century, Mothering Sunday was the 4th Sunday of Lent, and was a day servants could go home to their mom's, bringing them cakes and other treats.

In the United States, Mother's Day was first proclaimed in 1870 in Boston by Julia Ward Howe. Howe had been horrifid by the Civil War and Franco-Prussian War and hoped to create a "Mother's Day for Peace" that would be a day of pacifism and disarmament by women. (She also wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic.) Howe's Mother's Day was celebrated for several years before it faded out.

In 1907 Anna Jarvis in Grafton, West Virginia , declared a mother's day to commemorate the anniversary of her mother's death two years earlier on May 9 , 1905 . Jarvis's mother, also named Anna Jarvis, had been active in Mother's Day campaigns for peace and worker's safety and health. After her mother's death, the younger Jarvis launched a quest to get wider recognition of Mother's Day. The celebration organized by Jarvis on May 10 , 1908 involved 407 children with their mothers at the Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton. The following campaign to recognize Mother's Day was financed by clothing merchant John Wanamaker . As the custom of Mother's Day spread, the emphasis shifted from the pacificism and reform movements to a general appreciation of mothers. The first official recognition of the holiday was by West Virginia in 1910 . A proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day was signed by U.S. president Woodrow Wilson on May 14 , 1914 .

In the US a tradition calls for the wearing of carnation s on Mother's Day—a red one if one's mother is alive, and white if she has died.

Mother's Day will fall on the following dates:
2004 : May 9
2005 : May 8
2006 : May 14
2007 : May 13
2008 : May 11
2009 : May 10
2010 : May 9

(Source Women's History Net and tutorgig.com)