Celebrations honoring mothers and motherhood have occurred throughout the world for thousands of years, in various forms, on different dates. Although observances honoring mothers have already existed in America during the late 19th century, Anna Jarvis is credited as the founder of Mother's Day. On May 12, 1907, two years after her mother's death, Anna held a memorial to her mother and thereafter embarked upon a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday. She succeeded in making it so with a proclamation from President Woodraw Wilson in 1914. By the 1920's, however, Anna had grown bitter by all the commercialization and spent the rest of her life and inheritance campaigning against what it had become.
