History of Mother's Day in the U. S.

Anna Jarvis held a ceremony in 1907 in Grafton, West Virginia, to honor her mother, who had died two years earlier. Jarvis' mother had tried to establish Mother's Friendship Days as a way of dealing with the aftermath of the Civil War. Anna Jarvis began a campaign to create a national holiday honoring mothers. She and her supporters wrote to ministers, businessmen and politicians, and they were successful in their efforts.

In 1910, West Virginia became the first state to recognize the new holiday, and the nation followed in 1914 when President Wilson declared the second Sunday in May to be Mother's Day. Jarvis used white carnations as a symbol for mothers, because carnations represented sweetness, purity and the endurance of mother love. (Today, white carnations represent a mother who has died, while red carnations represent a living mother.)