On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issued a
presidential proclamation that officially established
the first national Mother’s Day holiday to celebrate
America’s mothers.
The idea for a “Mother’s Day” is credited by some to
Julia Ward Howe (1872) and by others to Anna Jarvis
(1907), who both suggested a holiday dedicated to a
day of peace.
Many individual states celebrated Mother’s Day by 1911,
but it was not until Wilson lobbied Congress in 1914 that
Mother’s Day was officially set on the second Sunday of
every May.
In his first Mother’s Day proclamation, Wilson stated that
the holiday offered a chance to “[publicly express] our
love and reverence for the mothers of our country.”
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