The First Mother’s Day in America
Richard Cavendish marks the first day commemorating mothers, on May 10th, 1908.
Julia Ward Howe, of ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ fame, tried to start a Mother’s Day for Peace in America after the Civil War, but nothing much came of it. One of her allies, however, was Anna Reece Jarvis, who died in Philadelphia in 1905. A memorial service was held for her at the Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia, where she had taught Sunday school, at which her daughter, Anna May Jarvis, a feminist and temperance activist, was struck by the idea of a national day to honour mothers.
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