Many people believe a well-known greeting card company started Mother’s Day. However, it actually started in Rome and became a holiday in the United States less than one hundred years ago.

In ancient Rome, each spring, Romans would present offerings to Cybele, their great mother of gods, and the Greeks would hold a festival to celebrate Rhea, the mother of many deities. Later, Christians in England began holding a festival on the fourth Sunday of Lent in honor of Mary, the mother of Christ. These traditions eventually became known as Mothering Sunday, and were expanded in England to include all mothers.

Mother’s Day was introduced in the United States in the early 1900s by an Appalachian homemaker named Anna Jarvis, who organized a day to raise awareness of the poor health conditions of her community. She believed mothers would be the best audience to direct her campaign toward and named the day, “Mother’s Work Day.” When Anna Jarvis died in 1905, her daughter, also named Anna, lobbied politicians (including Presidents Taft and Roosevelt) to support a day dedicated to mothers.

In 1908, Anna handed out white carnations (her mother’s favorite flower) to those in attendance at her church to celebrate her mother. Then in 1913, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution calling for federal government officials to wear white carnations on the day many were beginning to call Mother’s Day, the second Sunday in May. On May 8, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a Joint Resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

“Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the said Joint Resolution, do hereby direct the government officials to display the United States flag on all government buildings and do invite the people of the United States to display the flag at their homes or other suitable places on the second Sunday in May as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.”