The Advent Of Mother’s Day

The Birth of Mother’s Day

The modern Mother’s Day was invented by a lady named Anna Jarvis of Grafton, West Virginia in 1912. Anna wanted a personal way to honor moms within the family. She sought to honor mothers everywhere on that day. It spread fast across the Northeast and then throughout the country due to its immediate popularity. Companies jumped on board quickly for mother’s day gifts. Anna also trademarked the terms “Mother’s Day” and “Second Sunday of May” back then, which was incredible foresight. The special spelling for the holiday is “Mother’s Day” with an apostrophe in a bill signed by Woodrow Wilson.

Ironically, nine years after the first Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis opposed the holiday she helped create because of its mass commercialization. This did not stop Mother’s Day’s popularity and the history of Mother’s Day has become the stuff of legends. Far from it, this original United States holiday soon became official in many countries around the world and now the second Sunday of May.

Mothers Day in Ancient Times

Although the Mothers Day as we know it started from a humble town, the tradition of celebrating Mothers dates back to 700 BC with evidence in both ancient China and Greece. In Greece, mothers were celebrated during the Vernal Equinox when day and night are exactly 12 hours each which marks the coming of Spring. The Tang Dynasty at the height of the Chinese empire had a special holiday dedicated to mothers.

The vernal equinox mothers day was adopted by the conquering Romans 500 years later. The Roman holiday however, lasted for several days from March 15th to March 18th. The Roman Empire also had the Matronalia holiday where sons and daughters gave a gift to their mothers.

Throughout Asia, there were many special mother’s day celebrations, but the most culturally influential was China’s which spread to other parts of Asia, the Pacific and eventually Asia Minor and Eastern Europe. In Western Europe, a specific Sunday was designeated as “Mothering Sunday”.

Mother’s Day Today

Mothers Day is now celebrated in most countries and in many different ways. The variety of Mother’s Day gifts has grew exponentially as well include flowers, chocolates, jewelry, designer bags and chocolates all complemented with a card. A growing trend has been personalized jewelry and handcrafted personalized art as unique gifts ideas for mom. We found Mothers Day Gift Central as a great Mothers Day resource and will tell you everything in depth about this special day. The Second Sunday of May has been adopted as Mother’s Day is now by far the most popular date and has been adoped by over 550 million people. The second most used date remains the Spring Equinox or known as Vernal Equinox as explained above.