As American as Mom…
In 1914, President Wilson declared May 9th the first national Mother's Day. Select the correct answer from the following choices.
1. Which reasons for supporting Mother’s Day did not appear in U.S. newspapers from 1908 to 1915?
d. It would encourage women to cherish motherhood at a time when women were beginning to enter the workforce in larger numbers.
All of the other reasons often appeared in print at the time. The idea that "the florists invented Mother's Day," although incorrect, was often expressed then, as it is now.
2. Which criticism of Mother’s Day did not appear between 1908 and 1915?
d. In the decades before the first White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, Progressives concerned with the rights of children feared this holiday would overshadow the needs of Americans with the fewest protections, children.
The argument about creating an imbalance between mothers and fathers was compelling enough that attempts were made to change Mother's Day to Parents' Day, but when that proved impossible, to propose, as early as 1911, to establish the third week in June as Father's Day.
3. Who said the following: "All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother"?
c. President Abraham Lincoln
Mother's Day—as celebrated now in America and in many places abroad—is largely the result of the efforts of a West Virginia woman named Anna Jarvis. In 1908, Jarvis wanted to commemorate her recently deceased mother's own attempt to establish a day in which to honor women.
Jarvis conceived of the day as a quasi-"holy day." She enlisted, by mail, national religious organizations to promote the second Sunday of each May as a day for sermonizing and holding simple services to honor mothers. She encouraged individuals to express their devotion to their mothers by wearing white carnations or by visiting them or writing them letters.
In just a few years, Americans across the country celebrated Mother's Day with massive, organized, civic gatherings. In May 1914, President Wilson proclaimed May 9th as the first national Mother's Day.
Public reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Judging by the letters, reports, editorials, and newspaper columns, the holiday crystallized a variety of sentiments about mothers that ran deep in the culture.
