The beautiful bond of love shared between children and mothers is honored and celebrated on Mother's Day. Celebrations date back to ancient times, when the Greeks and Romans held festivals in honor of mother goddesses.

However, the origins of modern Mother's Day, as celebrated in the United States, date back to the 19th century.

A woman named Anna Reeves Jarvis helped establish Mother's Day work clubs to teach local women how to properly care for children. In 1868, Jarvis organized "Mother's Day Friendship Day". Mothers gathered to promote peace on that day. The official Mother's Day holiday began in the 1900s through the efforts of Anna Jarvis, Ann Reeves Jarvis’s daughter.

After her mother passed away, Anna Jarvis conceived Mother's Day as a way to honor the sacrifices mothers made for their children. She organized the first official Mother's Day celebration in 1908 after securing financial support from a Philadelphia department store owner.

Thousands of people came to attend a Mother's Day event at one of the Philadelphia retail stores. After the success of her first Mother's Day, Jarvis was determined to see her holiday added to the national calendar. She claimed that American holidays were biased in favor of male achievements. She launched a massive letter-writing campaign to newspapers and leading politicians calling for a special day to honor motherhood.

By 1912, many states, cities and churches had adopted Mother's Day as an annual holiday. Her persistence paid off in 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson officially established the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

Anna Jarvis originally imagined Mother's Day as a day of personal celebration between mothers and families. Her version of the day involved wearing a white carnation as a badge and visiting mother. Once Mother's Day became a national holiday, it did not take long for florists, card companies and other merchants to capitalize on its popularity.

By 1920, she was disgusted with the commercialization of the holiday. By the time she died in 1948, Jarvis had completely disowned the holiday and even lobbied the government to have it removed from the American calendar.

In the United States, Mother's Day continues to be celebrated with gifts and flowers for mothers and other women. It has become one of the largest holidays in terms of consumer spending. Families also celebrate it by giving mothers the day off for activities such as cooking and other household chores. Another way of celebrating Mother's Day exists in Ethiopia. Families gather each fall to sing songs and eat a large feast as part of a multi-day celebration honoring motherhood.

While versions of Mother's Day are celebrated around the world, traditions vary by country. In Thailand, for example, Mother's Day is always celebrated in August, on the current queen's birthday. In the United States, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in May each year. In the United Kingdom, Mother's Day is always celebrated three weeks before Easter. As for Madagascar and some other countries, Mother's Day is held on the last Sunday of May.

Sources: History, Britannica, National Women History Alliance, Legacy Project, Hopkins House