Mother's Day History

The Birth of Mother's Day

The modern Mother's Day was invented by a lady named Anna Jarvis of Grafton, West Virginia in 1912. Anna wanted a specific date for families to celebrate the mothers in their circle. She wanted the day to focus on the appreciation of moms by their families. It was an immediate success and spread like wildfire across the United States. Companies jumped on board quickly for mother's day gifts. Anna also trademarked the terms "Mother's Day" and "Second Sunday of May" back then, which was incredible foresight. A bill signed by President Woodrow Wilson specifically had "Mother's Day" with the singular apostrophe.

Anna Jarvis felt here original vision for Mother's Day was eroded by companies looking to make money off of it and she eventually opposed the holiday. This did not halt popularity of Mother's Day and the history of Mother's Day has become legendary. The Second Sunday of May is the offical Mothers Day in 80 nations around the world.

Mothers Day in Ancient Times

Although the modern Mother's Day started in a quiet small state in the United States, the tradition of a day for mothers dates back to ancient Greece and China as early as 700 BC. Mothers Day is celebrated at the Spring Equinox in Greece. Mothers were especially celebrated in Ancient China with a special national holiday.

The Roman empire adopted the Greek tradition of using the Spring Equinox as Mothers Day. A big difference was that the Roman version of the holiday was observed for a whole week starting on March 15th. The Roman Empire also had the Matronalia holiday where sons and daughters gave a gift to their mothers.

Throughout Asia, there were many special mother's day celebrations, but the most culturally influential was China's which spread to other parts of Asia, the Pacific and eventually Asia Minor and Eastern Europe. In France, England and the rest of Western Europe, a specific Sunday was denoted as "Mothering Sunday".

Mother's Day Today

Mothers Day is now celebrated in most countries and in many different ways. Common Mothers Day gift ideas are flowers, chocolates, jewelry, designer bags and chocolates all complemented with a card. Mothers necklaces has grown quickly in popularity. We found Mothers Day Gift Central as a great resource on Mothers Day. The Second Sunday of May has been adopted as Mother's Day is now by far the most popular date and has been adoped by over 550 million people. The second most used date remains the Spring Equinox which is also known as the Vernal Equinox or the Ides of March.