Did you know Mother’s Day has roots in Pennsylvania?

(WHTM) — In the U.S., Mother’s Day is always celebrated on the second Sunday in May. This year the holiday falls on May 12.

But even though Mother’s Day is celebrated both across the country and internationally, did you know that the origins of the holiday go back to one Pennsylvania woman?

According to the State Museum of Pennsylvania, Anna Jarvis (1864-1948) was a Philadelphia resident and advocate who campaigned to establish a national day to celebrate motherhood and family life.

Mother’s Day events in Central Pennsylvania

Jarvis, who was born in Grafton, West Virginia, didn’t move to Philadelphia until she was an adult.

It was there that in 1907 she began her fight for a national Mother’s Day by writing to Governors, lawmakers, the media, and more, according to an undated New York Times article in the West Virginia State Archives.

According to the archived article, the holiday was observed in nearly every state six years later. In 1914 it received federal recognition when President Woodrow Wilson signed a joint congressional resolution to proclaim Mother’s Day as the second Sunday in May.

In Philadelphia, located near City Hall, there is a historical marker commemorating Jarvis’s contribution to Mother’s Day. In her hometown in West Virginia — where the nation’s first Mother’s Day celebration was held –there is also a museum dedicated to her.

But even though Jarvis became known as the founder of Mother’s Day, she later became one of the holiday’s staunch critics.

Famous for her rejection of commercialism, she once argued that the holiday was “desecrated” by greeting card companies, florists and others who sought to profit off of the day.

The founder of Mother’s Day hated greeting cards and candy. Here’s what she suggested instead

After she died in 1948 at 84 years old, she was buried in the West Laurel Hill Cemetery in West Chester.

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