It's the Daily 304's presentation of famous people, places and events that shaped West Virginia. Welcome to The History Project. Today, we take look at…

Anna Jarvis – Creator of Mother's Day

Only a tiny handful of places in the world are the birthplace of an international holiday, and thanks to Grafton resident, Anna Jarvis's creation of Mother's Day, West Virginia is on that list. The idea was started by her own mother, Anne Reeves Jarvis, who first created Mother's Day Work Clubs, to teach mothers about health and sanitary conditions. And after the Civil War had divide Western Virginia into West Virginia, she created Mother's Friendship Day, engaging soldiers and their mother from both sides of the war in an act of reconciliation.

Anne died on May 10th, 1905. Her daughter, Anna, by now a successful advertising copywriter in Philadelphia, honored Anne and her ideas by creating Mother's Day at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton. Honoring all mothers, Anna chose the day of her mother's passing—the second Sunday of May—to be the official recurring day of observance for the new holiday.

West Virginia's governor made Mother's Day an official holiday in 1910 and other states followed suit. Philadelphia department store titan, John Wanamaker, helped convince Congress to make Mother's Day a national holiday, which it became with a stroke of Woodrow Wilson's pen in 1914.

However, over the years Jarvis became dismayed with the merchandising of the holiday. She felt it had become crass and commercialized and far removed from her intentions. Nonetheless, Mother's Day grew from an American holiday into one celebrated around the globe. Its birthplace, Andrews Church in Grafton, was made into the International Mother's Day Shrine, known around the world thanks to a woman who ironically had no children of her own, but who made herself the beloved daughter of all the mothers of the world.