So Mother’s Day is happening this Sunday, but do you know where and when this celebration of mothers first happened? Read on for a brief history of this world-wide holiday and why exactly we honour and celebrate motherhood.

 

Civil War origins

The earliest iterations of Mother’s Day occurred in the late 19th century in the United States. Ann Jarvis created  “Mother’s Friendship Day” which sought to reunite families that had been divided during the American Civil War. Jarvis had also previously organised a series of “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” which were established to provide better sanitation for both Confederate and Union soldiers during the Civil War.

The establishment of a holiday

It was in fact the daughter of Ann Jarvis, Anna Jarvis, who first petitioned to have Mother’s Day as a U.S national holiday following the death of her mother. On the 10th of May 1913 the then American president Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation declaring the first national Mother’s Day as a holiday where all Americans were encouraged to fly the flag in honour of all the mothers who had lost loved ones to war.

Traditions and commercialisation of the holiday

Some of the earliest traditions associated with Mother’s Day include churchgoing, family dinners and the handing out of carnations, of which Anna Jarvis handed out 500 on Mother’s Day in 1908. The commercialisation of Mother’s Day only began roughly a decade after the first holiday was celebrated and started with greeting card companies producing cards to be exchanged specifically on the holiday. Soon afterwards the modern Mother’s Day gifts such as flowers and chocolates would also be distributed.

Did you know?

Have you heard any of these interesting factoids concerning Mother’s Day:

  • Mother’s Day is the third largest holiday in the United States, with people spending $2.6 billion on flowers and a further $25 billion on greeting cards. SureSwipe reported that South Africans spend R500 000 on giftcards each year.
  • Carnations are a firm favourite around the world, however, South Africans prefer the rose.
  • A quarter of all the flowers sold around the world in a year are sold on Mother’s Day.
  • In America around 122 million phone calls are made on Mother’s Day
  • Mother’s Day is also known as “second Sunday in May”, “Mothering Sunday” and “Mother’s Celebration” around the world.
  • Ex-communist countries usually celebrated a holiday known as “International Women’s Day” rather than the more capitalistic Mother’s Day.
  • The originator of Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis, was angered by what she felt was the ‘commercialisation’ of the holiday. She was arrested for disturbing the peace in 1925 when she caused a scene outside a shop that was selling Mothers Day cards.