Uncommon Knowledge: Who fought against Mother’s Day cards?

Anna Jarvis is perhaps the only person in history who would go to great lengths to discredit Mother’s Day cards. Jarvis believed that Mother’s Day should be spent in prayerful reflection and sincere gratitude for our mothers, not as the commercialized shopping opportunity it had become by the 1920s. To her, a gift of chocolate was an empty gesture, and a purchased card “means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world.” Jarvis campaigned fiercely for her cause, forming the Mother’s Day International Association and even trademarking the phrase “Mother’s Day”. She met with little public support, and was even once arrested for disturbing the peace. Why was Jarvis so worked up about Mother’s Day? Because she was the woman who lobbied to make it a national holiday in the first place.

Mother Necklace, $78