For thousands of years, humanity has celebrated their mothers, from the ancient Greeks and Romans and before, all the way to today, when we set aside a special day to honor moms — Mother's Day, observed this year on May 9, 2021.
Our modern Mother's Day celebration has deep roots and it is actually the love of a mother that for centuries has inspired celebration.
A mother's love has been thought powerful enough to stop wars.
At least that is what Julia Ward Howell thought. She was a pacifist and writer in Boston who first suggested a Mother's Day in 1872, as a day dedicated to peace. She appealed to mothers: "Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?"
The love of a mother has been thought strong enough reunite warring parties.
During the Civil War, Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis (sometimes called Mother Jarvis) called women together to nurse soldiers on both sides of the conflict. After the war, she called together her mothering clubs to reconnect families and friends that were on different sides of the war between the states.
A mother's love was thought to be essential for humanity.
Mother Jarvis' daughter, Ana Jarvis, successfully campaigned for a national Mother's Day and Ana credited the idea to her mother, who said mothers should be honored for "the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it."
Ana Jarvis, who died in 1948 at the age of 84, successfully campaigned for a national Mother's Day and by 1911, nearly every state celebrated it. In 1914, the holiday was officially set at the second Sunday of May in the United States.
