In the late 1800s, Sunday school teacher Ann Reeves Jarvis was passionate about teaching women how to care for their children. Deeply religious, she often prayed that there could be a day set aside to honor hard-working mothers. After she died in 1905, her daughter Anna Jarvis campaigned tirelessly to fulfill that wish. Over the course of many years, she lobbied prominent individuals such as author Mark Twain, President Theodore Roosevelt, and dozens of U.S. governors to persuade them to declare the second Sunday in May -- the closest Sunday to the anniversary of her own mother’s death -- as Mother’s Day. On 8 May 1914, Congress passed a law making Mother’s Day an official holiday. However, it didn’t take long for Jarvis's idea to be co-opted by other causes and become a highly profitable business opportunity for the floral and greeting card industries, among others. For the remainder of her life, Jarvis fought a losing battle to keep Mother’s Day as she had originally conceived it and to prevent the holiday from becoming commercialized.
A love-hate relationship with Mother's Day: