After devoting several years to making Mother’s Day a nationally accepted holiday, the woman who founded it later regretted what it had become, according to History.com.
A West Virginia woman founded Mother’s Day in 1908 to honor her beloved mother; also to give others a day to celebrate their own mom. In pursuit of the day becoming nationally recognized, by 1914 Anna Marie Jarvis had convinced the U.S. Congress and President Woodrow Wilson to embrace Mother’s Day as a holiday, on the second Sunday in May.
Today, Mother’s Day is heavily commercialized- which is against what Jarvis intended. As the holiday grew in popularity, the day centered on printed cards, flowers, and other purchased gifts.
According to the reports, in 1925 the American War Mothers sold carnations for Mother’s Day as a fundraiser. Jarvis protested this event and was arrested for disturbing the peace. Later, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt used Mother’s Day as an occasion to raise money for charity, which Jarvis outwardly detested.
By the 1940s, Jarvis disowned the holiday- and requested the government remove it from the calendar, according to biography.com. The day, however, remained and is today both nationally and globally recognized.
According to a survey by the National Retail Federation, an average about $169 is how much the average American will spend on Mother’s Day in 2013.
The 2013 total for Mother’s Day spending is expected to reach over $20 billion.
