Mother Jarvis’ Crusade

May 3, 2015

Searching for the real meaning of Mother’s Day

Anyone planning to purchase a gift and a greeting card this Mother’s Day owes Anna Jarvis an apology. For the woman credited with establishing Mother’s Day in the U.S. more than a century ago, a national day of remembrance was an intimate concept too sacred to be commercialized, and she would defend that strident position on the holiday as long as she lived.

In 1905, the death of Jarvis’ mother inspired her to create a national holiday. Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis was a tireless adovcate for others, working for improved sanitation to help lower infant mortality and initiating Mother’s Friendship Day picnics that sought to heal the broken bonds between Union and Confederate families.

"For Jarvis, it was a day where you’d go home to spend time with your mother and thank her for all that she did," said Dr. Katharine Antolini, a West Virginia Wesleyan professor in gender studies and American history. "It wasn’t to celebrate all mothers. It was to celebrate the best mother you’ve ever known," she said in an interview with National Geographic.

In 1914, when President Wilson declared the second Sunday of May a national Mother’s Day, homemade expressions of appreciation were almost immediately replaced with mass-produced, professional cards, gifts and floral arrangements. Jarvis was horrified.

By the 1920s, Jarvis was fervently combating every group that was earning money from the holiday, even going so far as to order a Mother’s Day Salad from a restaurant menu only to dump it on the floor and leave in a huff. She picketed, she rallied, she fought. Such stunts proved ineffective, though.

Jarvis’ activism against the holiday she created kept her stomping out of restaurants and picketing charity fundraisers throughout her life. Eventually, she trademarked the term Mother’s Day and threatened to sue every business using the title to sell any product or to profit in any way.

These attempts to squash retail participation were spectacular failures, as evidenced by the fact that, this year, nearly 8,000 Walgreens stores erected a Mother’s Day display with unified corporate merchandising and signage.

Jarvis had no children. Mother’s Day was her baby. She created it, transformed it from a local picnic to a national holiday, and fought ardently to keep it true to its original purpose. She railed against commercialization, never realizing that such popularization would help extend her celebration into the next century.

If we want to treat the holiday as reverently as Jarvis intended, we should strive to spend each second Sunday in May highlighting the uniqueness of each mother, whether with meals, massages or macaroni necklaces.