Mother’s Day and Songs for Mama

Music About Your Mom: Mother Songs

Mother’s Day

The modern holiday of Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908 when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in West Virginia.  There were Ancient versions of Mother’s Days, but they were more about fertility and birth. Anna’s idea to make Mother’s Day a real holiday in the United States began in 1905, the year her own mother, Ann Jarvis, died.

Anna wanted to honor her mother by continuing the work she started and to set aside a day to honor all mothers because she believed a mother is “the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world”.

In 1868, Anna’s mother was Ann Jarvis, and she wanted to reunite families that had been divided during the Civil War – so she created The “Mother’s Friendship Day” Committee. During the war, she organized what she called “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” to improve sanitation and health for both Union and Confederate soldiers for a typhoid outbreak, which was a big problem. 

Young Anna saw how her mom used other mothers, to help everyone on both sides and maybe healed a bit after the Civil War, so she really recognized the importance of mothers, through her own mother’s actions, and she campaigned – a lot, and by 1911 every U.S. states observed the holiday one way or another, both formally and informally.

In 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating Mother’s Day, held on the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday to honor mothers. She was particular about the spelling – APOSTROPHE – S, to “be a singular possessive, for each family to honor its own mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world.”

Anna never had any children herself- Her intention was to have a truly personal holiday for individual mothers, but it didn’t turn out that way. People call it a “hallmark Holiday’ after the greeting card company, and Anna was resentful of the commercialization of the holiday.

By the early 1920s, companies started selling Mother’s Day cards. (Hallmark didn’t sell Mother’s day Cards until the late 1920s) People gave their mothers candy and carnations, but Anna thought that the companies and people in general, misinterpreted and exploited the idea of Mother’s Day and that the emphasis of the holiday was supposed to be a sentiment, not profit. She was probably right – a phone call or visit is more personal than a card, so take mom out, or invite her in for dinner.

Mother’s Day is the #3 Day for Cards. Quality Time is probably the best gift for a mother.

Songs For Moms