Mother’s have been honored and revered since time began, but the celebration of Mother’s Day in the United States is a relatively new practice. Rooted in the ancient Roman tradition of Matronalia, a festival where mothers were presented with gifts, Mother’s Day as we know it now is most closely tied to the British holiday ‘Mothering Sunday’, which has pagan roots.
 
Mother’s Day is celebrated across cultures, and with the odd exception of the original ‘Mothering Sunday’ in the U.K., the tradition is associated with the United States custom adopted in the early 20th century.
 
The tradition of Mother’s Day was initiated in 1870 by activist Julia Ward Howe as a call to women to unite against the Civil War. Howe failed to get the support she needed for her ‘Mother’s Day for Peace’, but her campaign inspired a young Appalachian homemaker named Ann Jarvis. Jarvis attempted to improve sanitation for soldiers from both sides through what she called ‘Mother’s Work Days’, and later went on to reconcile Union and Confederate soldiers.
 
When Jarvis passed away in 1905, her daughter Anna Jarvis carried on the crusade to create a day memorializing women. On May 10, 1907 Jarvis celebrated the first Mother’s Day by passing out white carnations to the members of her church. The custom caught on in West Virginia, and quickly spread to 48 other states. In May, 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother’s Day an official holiday.
 
It is tradition now, particularly in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. for a mother to receive carnations as a gift on Mother’s Day. This is naturally due in part to Anna Jarvis passing out white carnations to her church. She chose carnations because they happened to be her mother’s favorite flower. White carnations were chosen to symbolize the purity of a mother’s love, but have lately come to represent a mother who is no longer living. A living mother will most often be recognized by a red carnation.
 
Oddly enough, Anna Jarvis became a crusader against the holiday she had worked so hard to create. Disgusted by the commercial turn the holiday had taken, Anna was an outspoken activist against the tradition, and was even arrested for disturbing the peace at an anti-Mother’s Day demonstration in 1948. She was particularly offended by the greeting card industry, chastising those who sent cards as being ‘too lazy to write a letter”. Eventually, Anna said she “wished she would have never started the day because it became so out of control..."
 
Nevertheless, Mother’s Day continues to be one of the most commercially successful holidays in the United States. Each year, Americans spend approximately $2.6 billion on Mother’s Day flower arrangements, $1.53 billion on pampering gifts—like spa treatments—and another $68 million on greeting cards. According the National Restaurant Association, Mother’s Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States.