WASHINGTON — It’s been 104 years since Congress officially set aside the second Sunday in May to celebrate mothers. And it’s all thanks to a woman who wasn’t even a mother herself.
Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau released this and other fun facts about the holiday through their Statistics in Schools program.
Here are some interesting things about Mother’s Day you might not have known.
Anna Jarvis organized the first Mother’s Day on May 10, 1908 in West Virginia and Philadelphia. Jarvis asked Congress to grant a special day to honor mothers.
President Woodrow Wilson established the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day in 1914, but Jarvis would soon after lobby the government to have it removed from the American calendar as she thought it had become too commercialized by florists, card companies and other merchants. According to History.com, Jarvis envisioned Mother’s Day as a personal celebration between mothers and families. This is an undated picture of Anna Jarvis, from Grafton, West Virginia, who promoted and achieved the proclamation of Mother’s Day as a national holiday, in honor of her mother, Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis. (AP Photo)
-Age 20-24: 37 percent
-Age 25-29: 24 percent
-Age 30-34: 12 percent
-Age 35-39: 4 percent
-Age 40 and older: 1 percent (Thinkstock)
