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Speaker 1: Pushkin.

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Speaker 2: The Grand Crystal Tea Room, on the eighth floor of

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Speaker 2: Wannamaker's Department store in Philadelphia was a local institution in

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Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties and thirties with its fine dining and

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Speaker 2: spectacular chandeliers. On this particular day, the tea room was

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Speaker 2: receiving another local institution, Miss Anna Marie Jarvis, one of

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Speaker 2: Philadelphia's most famous citizens. She was friends with the owner himself,

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Speaker 2: John Wanamaker. The server may well have recognized her as

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Speaker 2: they nervously approached her table. And what can I bring you,

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Speaker 2: Miss Jervis?

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Speaker 3: I notice you have a special Mother's Day salad er.

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Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, Miss Jervis, you may bring me there. Of course,

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Speaker 2: Miss Jervis, a Mother's Day the perfect way to celebrate

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Speaker 2: the second Sunday in May, no doubt when treating one's

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Speaker 2: beloved mother to a fine luncheon at the Grand Crystal

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Speaker 2: Tea Room, the elegantly presented salad was brought out and

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Speaker 2: set in front of Miss Jervis. With an icy calm,

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Speaker 2: She rose to her feet, picked up the plate, and

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Speaker 2: dumped the salad on the tea room floor. She then

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Speaker 2: took out her purse left payment on the table and

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Speaker 2: swept out across the opulent dining room. Every Mother's Day

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Speaker 2: lunch would have stopped forks, paused midway to mouths. Every

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Speaker 2: eye in the grand crystal tea room would have been

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Speaker 2: following her as she left. Well, there goes miss Anna

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Speaker 2: Marie Jarvis, the founder of Mother's Day. I'm Tim Harford,

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Speaker 2: and you're listening to cautionary tales. It's never easy to

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Speaker 2: be a mother, but for nineteenth century mothers it was brutal.

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Speaker 2: Anna Marie Jarvis was one of thirteen children, but only

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Speaker 2: three of her siblings survived to adulthood. Their mother was

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Speaker 2: Anne Reeves Jarvis, born in Virginia in eighteen thirty two.

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Speaker 2: Before Anna Marie was even conceived, her mother had set

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Speaker 2: up a community organization to improve the health of other mothers,

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Speaker 2: teaching them about hygiene measures such as boiling drinking water.

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Speaker 2: She was pregnant with her sixth child at the time,

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Speaker 2: but such measures only she went so far in a

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Speaker 2: world that was perilous for children. Before daughter Annie Marie

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Speaker 2: was born, her mother had buried seven of her children,

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Speaker 2: several killed by measles. Before Annie Marie was old enough

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Speaker 2: to walk, her mother had organized medical treatment for the

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Speaker 2: wounded men on both sides of the Civil War. Anne

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Speaker 2: Reeves Jarvis lived a life full of suffering and of service.

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Speaker 2: When Anna Marie was twelve, she went to a Sunday

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Speaker 2: school class led by her mother, who offered these words

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Speaker 2: as a closing prayer.

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Speaker 4: I hope and pray that someone sometime will found a

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Speaker 4: memorial Mother's Day commemorating her for the matchless service she

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Speaker 4: renders to humanity in every field of life. She is

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Speaker 4: entitled to it.

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Speaker 2: Anna Marie Jarvis did not forget. Anna Marie was fiercely

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Speaker 2: admiring of her mother and protective of her too. Acutely

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Speaker 2: aware of her mother's grief, Anne Reeves Jarvis would tell

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Speaker 2: her daughter about the dreams she had. In one dream,

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Speaker 2: she walked barefoot carrying her young child to a biblical mountaintop.

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Speaker 4: I had to pass through a field of stubble, urdened

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Speaker 4: by the weight of my child, whom I was carrying

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Speaker 4: to protect her little feet from the roughness of the ground.

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Speaker 4: I climbed a hill in the greatest agony and could

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Speaker 4: see the tracks of blood I left behind at the stubble,

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Speaker 4: pierced by aching feet.

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Speaker 2: It was a vision of the death of a child

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Speaker 2: at a sign that no pain, no sacrifice from the

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Speaker 2: mother could protect her daughter from a mother who lost

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Speaker 2: nine children. The subtext needs no explanation, and perhaps it's

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Speaker 2: not surprising that Anna Marie seemed tied to her mother's

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Speaker 2: apron strings for many years. Only in her late twenty

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Speaker 2: did she finally move out from the family home in

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Speaker 2: rural West Virginia to the city of Chattanooga and then

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Speaker 2: to Philadelphia. She sent let us home every few days.

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Speaker 3: I think I love you more and more each day.

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Speaker 2: Her father was always a distant figure and a heavy drinker.

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Speaker 2: When he died, she wrote, you.

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Speaker 3: Are more to us now than ever, and we all

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Speaker 3: want to take care of you so we can have

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Speaker 3: you with us a long time, for you are such

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Speaker 3: a dear, good mother.

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Speaker 2: In fact, they had her with them for just a

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Speaker 2: couple more years. On the ninth of May nineteen oh five,

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Speaker 2: old missus Jarvis died surrounded by her surviving children, but

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Speaker 2: her last words were breathed to Anna Marie alone. And

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Speaker 2: Anna Marie, it seems, had remembered her mother's prayer of

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Speaker 2: nearly three decades earlier. At her grave, she vowed by

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Speaker 2: the grace of God you shall have that Mother's Day.

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Speaker 2: She began a campaign of letter writing to influential figures,

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Speaker 2: from local businessman John Wannamaker, the owner of Wannamaker's Department Store,

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Speaker 2: to the President himself, Theodore Roosevelt. She wrote to Mark Twain,

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Speaker 2: and she wrote to Edward Bock, the editor of the

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Speaker 2: Ladies Home Journal. Loyal listeners of this show may remember

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Speaker 2: Edward Bock. He proudly boasted of having no interest in

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Speaker 2: understanding women. But even Boch seemed content to support the

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Speaker 2: idea of motherhood. Whether it was because Anna Marie's letters

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Speaker 2: were so persuasive or because her cause had such universal appeal,

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Speaker 2: her campaign to create an official Mother's Day rapidly gathered momentum.

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Speaker 2: On May the tenth, nineteen o eight, the first official

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Speaker 2: observancies of her Mother's Day took place, one in Grafton,

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Speaker 2: West Virginia, and one in Philadelphia. Anna Marie had chosen

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Speaker 2: the date, the second Sunday of May, to be close

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Speaker 2: to the anniversary of her mother's death. In the morning,

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Speaker 2: a congregation gathered at the Methodist Church in Grafton, which

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Speaker 2: her mother had attended for many years. Anna Marie intended

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Speaker 2: Mother's Day as close to a religious celebration, she paid

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Speaker 2: for five hundred white carnations to be handed to the

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Speaker 2: congregation and sent a telegram to be read at the service,

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Speaker 2: declaring that the purpose of the day was to revive

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Speaker 2: the dormant love and final gratitude we owe to those

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Speaker 2: who gave us birth. That afternoon, over in Philadelphia, fifteen

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Speaker 2: thousand people tried to get into the Wannamaker Store auditorium.

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Speaker 2: Anna Marie Jarvis spoke for over an hour on the

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Speaker 2: power of motherly love. It was a good start, but

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Speaker 2: Anna Marie wanted more for Mother's Day, so she quit

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Speaker 2: her job, set up the Mother's Day International Association and

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Speaker 2: Too Good Europe in nineteen thirteen to promote her idea,

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Speaker 2: funded in part by donations and in part by her brother,

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Speaker 2: who was a successful businessman. In nineteen fourteen, she was

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Speaker 2: present in the gallery when the US Congress granted its

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Speaker 2: official approval putting Mother's Day on the national calendar. Anna

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Speaker 2: Marie had been true to her promise that her mother's

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Speaker 2: prayer had been answered. That's the conventional story about Mother's Day,

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Speaker 2: but from here on the other side of the Atlantic,

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Speaker 2: the story seems strange. In the UK, we don't celebrate

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Speaker 2: Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. We celebrate

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Speaker 2: Mothering Sunday on the fourth Sunday in Lent, which is

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Speaker 2: usually in March. It returned to your mother church on

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Speaker 2: Mothering Sunday and pay respects to the Virgin Mary, although

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Speaker 2: you might also take the opportunity to visit your own life.

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Speaker 2: That tradition is centuries old, much older than the United

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Speaker 2: States itself. As the author of the Definitive History of

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Speaker 2: Mother's Day, Catherine Lane Antellini points out, it's not just

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Speaker 2: the British who had much older Mother's Day traditions. The

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Speaker 2: Greeks and the Romans celebrated mother goddesses, as did early Christians,

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Speaker 2: and in nineteenth century America, there were others who publicly

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Speaker 2: promoted the idea of Mother's Day before Anna Marie Jarvis,

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Speaker 2: her own mother, was one of them, but so were

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Speaker 2: well connected Bostonian abolitionist Julia Ward Howe and Juliet Calhoun Blakeley,

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Speaker 2: a leader of the Temperance Movement from Michigan. So was

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Speaker 2: Mary Twells Sassine, who came from a wealthy family in Henderson, Kentucky.

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Speaker 2: She had written a pamphlet in eighteen ninety three proposing

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Speaker 2: a Mother's Day celebration. The following year, she managed to

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Speaker 2: get the state to recognize April the twentieth as Mother's Day.

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Speaker 2: It was her own mother's birthday, but in a bitter irony,

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Speaker 2: Mary Sassine had died in childbirth, and the idea had

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Speaker 2: stayed local to Kentucky and Ohio. There were others. Still,

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Speaker 2: it's a crowded field. So who really deserves the credit?

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Speaker 2: One writer, opining in nineteen thirteen, just before Mother's Day

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Speaker 2: became a national holiday, and only a few years after

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Speaker 2: Jervis's church service in West Virginia, knew exactly who to

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Speaker 2: thank for the success of the day. We are to

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Speaker 2: credit ourselves, us, we the members of the trade, who

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Speaker 2: are sufficiently progressive to push it along. Mother's Day is ours.

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Speaker 2: We made it, We made it practically, unaided and alone.

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Speaker 2: Who was the we? The Abolitionists, the Temperance Movement, the

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Speaker 2: Methodists were none of them. Of course, the answer is

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Speaker 2: far more intriguing. Cautionary tales will be back in a moment.

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Speaker 2: Mother's Day is ours. We made it, We made it practically,

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Speaker 2: unaided and alone. These confident claims were published in The

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Speaker 2: Florist's Review, a trade magazine written by florists four florists.

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Speaker 2: Right from the start, Anna Marie Jarvis's Mother's Day had

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Speaker 2: been bound up with the idea of flowers. She spent

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Speaker 2: seven hundred dollars giving away white carnations in the first

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Speaker 2: five years of the service. Relative to the wages of

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Speaker 2: the day, that would be about one hundred thousand dollars. Now,

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Speaker 2: Philadelphia was drenched in flowers. The city's Rapid Transit company

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Speaker 2: had given ten thousand white carnations to its workers and

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Speaker 2: its passengers in nineteen ten. In nineteen thirteen, Wannamaker's department

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Speaker 2: store gave away forty nine thousand flowers to customers to

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Speaker 2: celebrate the new Mother's Day holiday. Jarvis remember had approached

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Speaker 2: the owner, John Wanamaker, for support early on. None of

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Speaker 2: this would have been possible without the active support of

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Speaker 2: florists who had plenty of cheap flowers available in May

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Speaker 2: and were looking for an opportunity to stoke demand, and

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Speaker 2: it worked soon enough. The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that you

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Speaker 2: couldn't beg, borrow, or steal a carnation on Mother's Day,

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Speaker 2: which may have been true, although I'm sure Philadelphia's estimable

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Speaker 2: florists would have found a way to sell you one

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Speaker 2: for a price. The price of carnations around Mother's Day

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Speaker 2: increased thirty times over, from half a cent to fifteen

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Speaker 2: cents in just five years. Javis wasn't impressed. She had

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Speaker 2: originally chosen the white carnation as an inexpensive flower that

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Speaker 2: anyone could afford. Soon, some genius suggested wearing a white

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Speaker 2: carnation if your mother was dead, and a red carnation

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Speaker 2: if she was alive, thus dramatically expanding the supply. Jarvis

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Speaker 2: wasn't impressed with that either. She complained that she never

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Speaker 2: meant the badge of honor to become a badge of mourning.

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Speaker 2: The florists, meanwhile, were at pains to point out that

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Speaker 2: neither the red nor the white carnation that one might

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Speaker 2: wear could be a substitute for the bauquet of flowers

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Speaker 2: one would buy for one's mother. Despite their disagreement over

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Speaker 2: the red carnation, the florists loved Jarvis's vision of a

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Speaker 2: Mother's Day that was personal, not political. Anna Marie Jarvis

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Speaker 2: used the slogan for the best mother in the world,

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Speaker 2: Your mother to her. Mother's Day was about the closest

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Speaker 2: of all family relationships between a mother and her child.

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Speaker 2: That seems obvious and inevitable now, but it wasn't at

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Speaker 2: the time. Even Anna Marie's own mother had a very

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Speaker 2: different vision for a Mother's Day. Her Sunday school prayer,

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Speaker 2: the one that Annie Marie had witnessed as a child,

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Speaker 2: hoped for a memorial Mother's Day that would recognize her

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Speaker 2: service to humanity in every field of life. She had

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Speaker 2: in mind a grander canvas and thought a Mother's Day

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Speaker 2: would be an opportunity for reconciliation after the bitterness of

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Speaker 2: the Civil War. She imagined Mother's Day picnics in which

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Speaker 2: mothers of veterans from both sides would get together and talk.

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Speaker 2: Many other Mother's Day proponents had similarly political ideas. Juliet

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Speaker 2: Calhoun Blakely was an advocate for the Temperance movement, while

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Speaker 2: Julia Ward Howe had proposed a Mother's Peace Day on

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Speaker 2: the secondar June, on which mothers around the world would

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Speaker 2: work together to put an end to war. A lovely sentiment,

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Speaker 2: but not one that's likely to sell a lot of

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Speaker 2: flowers and candy. Anna Marie didn't want to help mothers

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Speaker 2: in general to organize for peace or temperance. She wanted

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Speaker 2: you to celebrate your mother, no wonder. Ana Marie Jarvis's

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Speaker 2: sentimental vision was the one which got so much support

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Speaker 2: behind the scenes from the florists. It was the very

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Speaker 2: simplicity and universality of her idea, let's all say thank

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Speaker 2: you to Mum, that made it so ubiquitous and therefore

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Speaker 2: so lucrative. Other women had tried to promote her Mother's

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Speaker 2: Day before her, but Anna Marie Jarvis had sealed the deal,

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Speaker 2: and she had the florists to thank for that. They

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Speaker 2: had pushed the idea, advertised it, and made it feel

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Speaker 2: like an occasion only a scoundrel would forget. But the

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Speaker 2: florists didn't to be seen as the driving force behind

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Speaker 2: Mother's Day. That would be crass, so they quietly sponsored

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Speaker 2: newspaper columns telling the story of Anne Reeves Jervis's wish

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Speaker 2: for a Mother's Day and her daughter, Anna Marie's determined

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Speaker 2: campaign to see her late mother's wish become a reality.

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Speaker 2: Much better that she, rather than they, were seen as

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Speaker 2: the creators of Mother's Day. At first, Jarvis had been

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Speaker 2: happy to get the support of the floral industry. She

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Speaker 2: even provided special Mother's Day signs which any florist could

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Speaker 2: display next to their wares. It was fine as long

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Speaker 2: as things didn't go too far, but when commerce meets

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Speaker 2: the calendar, things usually do go too far. Around the

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Speaker 2: same time as Anna Marie's campaign, the raisin growers of

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Speaker 2: California started promoting National Raisin Dad. They advertised, sent out

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Speaker 2: flyers with recipes, and it worked. On April thirtieth, nineteen

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Speaker 2: oh nine, the restaurants of America were outdoing each other

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Speaker 2: in their efforts to offer dishes based on dried fruit,

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Speaker 2: and by the following year, the newspapers were complaining about it.

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Speaker 2: The Planet Money podcast has coined a delightful phrase for

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Speaker 2: an irritating practice, the holiday industrial complex. The holiday industrial

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Speaker 2: complex will use any means necessary to get commercially lucrative

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Speaker 2: days onto the calendar, often with the help of the

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Speaker 2: US Congress, which approved Mother's Day back in nineteen fourteen.

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Speaker 2: By the mid nineteen eighties, Congress could do little else

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Speaker 2: but introduce more commemorations, no doubt, thanks to vigorous lobbying

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Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty five and nineteen eighty six, one third

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Speaker 2: of all laws passed by Congress recognized a special commemorative period,

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Speaker 2: such as National Air Traffic Control Day or National Birds

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Speaker 2: of Prey Month. Two hundred twenty seven were introduced in

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Speaker 2: just those two years. But the holiday industrial complex doesn't

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Speaker 2: need Congress to create these special days. There are plenty

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Speaker 2: of others who'll do that. The sixth of February, for example,

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Speaker 2: has been designated the National Day for the Sami people

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Speaker 2: of Scandinavia and the United Nations Day for Zero Tolerance

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Speaker 2: to Female Genital Mutilation. Unfortunately, it's also National Frozen Yogurt

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Speaker 2: Day and National Name Duck Day in the US, while

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Speaker 2: in the UK it's ice Cream for Breakfast Day and

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Speaker 2: National Sickie Day. What's going on to produce such jarring conjunctions.

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Speaker 2: It's partly that these special days provide a way for

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Speaker 2: the producers of raisins to coordinate with each other. It's

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Speaker 2: the same for the producers of ice cream, or for

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Speaker 2: the campaigners and the NGOs raising awareness of female genital

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Speaker 2: mutilation when it might be hopeless for one of them

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Speaker 2: alone to get people excited about their cause. Where whether

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Speaker 2: it's something serious like protecting girls from harm or something

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Speaker 2: silly like selling oatmeal and raisin cookies. If they all

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Speaker 2: get together, that might be enough to get noticed, at

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Speaker 2: least for one day. And there are a lot of

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Speaker 2: people out there looking for something to talk about, from

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Speaker 2: radio hosts to social media influencers. The void must be filled.

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Speaker 2: And on a slow news day, why not talk about

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Speaker 2: lame ducks or ice cream for breakfast. Even serious issues

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Speaker 2: such as female genital mutilation can't easily be discussed without

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Speaker 2: some sort of excuse. There needs to be a peg

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Speaker 2: onto which to hang the news story or the Facebook post.

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Speaker 2: And if that makes you think about how shallow our

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Speaker 2: media discourse can be, don't let yourself feel too superior.

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Speaker 2: Anyone who's used Christmas cards as an excuse to revive

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Speaker 2: a long withered friendship, or who can't quite organize a

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Speaker 2: romantic candle at dinner without Valentine's Day as a prompt,

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Speaker 2: knows that sometimes even crass commercial to can be better

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Speaker 2: than nothing. Anna Marie Jarvis seems to have understood this.

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Speaker 2: She'd written to her own mother incessantly, to the point

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Speaker 2: where when more than a week went by without a

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Speaker 2: letter from Anna Marie, old missus Jarvis wrote to ask

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Speaker 2: what was wrong. A single letter on Mother's Day seems

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Speaker 2: such a thin substitute for an ongoing correspondence between mother

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Speaker 2: and daughter. But Anna Marie urged people to write to

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Speaker 2: their mothers on Mother's Day because she knew that otherwise

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Speaker 2: they might not write to their mothers at all. To

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Speaker 2: compare Mother's Day to National Raisin Day, does Mother's Day

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Speaker 2: a disservice? Financially speaking? National Raisin Day is a shrug,

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Speaker 2: while Mother's Day is big business. I suspect that even

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Speaker 2: raisin growers don't get too excited about National Raisin Day.

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Speaker 2: But there's an entire floral and greeting card industry orbiting

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Speaker 2: around each Mother's Day for Weekstree Associations have estimated that

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Speaker 2: a third of Americans dine out on Mother's Day and

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Speaker 2: that the average person spends over two hundred dollars on

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Speaker 2: Mother's Day gifts such as special days out, cards, and flowers.

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Speaker 2: Nobody spends two hundred dollars on raisins. But that's not

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Speaker 2: the only reason that Mother's Day is noteworthy. Lee Eric Schmidt,

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Speaker 2: a historian, examines the commercialization of holidays in his book

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Speaker 2: Consumer Rights. He argues that Mother's Day really is different

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Speaker 2: because it became the template for the creation and marketization

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Speaker 2: of the commemorative days that came later. It's unclear if

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Speaker 2: the raisin growers were directly inspired by the florists, but

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Speaker 2: entrepreneurs certainly noticed that Mother's Day was good business and

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Speaker 2: promptly proposed a Father's Day. Father's Day got off to

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Speaker 2: a slow start. What next, said The New York Times

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Speaker 2: in nineteen fourteen, maiden Auntie's Day, household pet Day, or

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Speaker 2: a but the New York Times had no idea. Father's

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Speaker 2: Day also struck many commentators as absurd, on the grounds

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Speaker 2: that fathers are providers for the family, they give gifts

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Speaker 2: rather than receiving them. One two panel cartoon from nineteen

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Speaker 2: eleven showed a grateful gentleman being presented with gifts from

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Speaker 2: his family on Father's Day, then the day after, facing

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Speaker 2: a crowd of retailers, each presenting him with a hefty

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Speaker 2: bill for the previous day's indulgences. Bring out the tiny

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Speaker 2: violins for Dad. And yet slowly Father's Day caught on,

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Speaker 2: even if it was always a fainter echo of Mother's Day.

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Speaker 2: And perhaps it would not have caught on had it

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Speaker 2: not been for years of diligent work by a trade

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Speaker 2: body associated men's wear retailers, followed by a nineteen thirty

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Speaker 2: eight alliance with the National Retail Dry Goods Association, the

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Speaker 2: National Association of Retail Clothiers and Furnishers, and the National

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Speaker 2: Association of Tobacco Distributors, who together established the National Council

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Speaker 2: for the Promotion of Father's Day. Not every such effort

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Speaker 2: was successful. Children's Day, Friendship Day, and Candy Day were

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Speaker 2: all launched and never enjoyed anything like the success of

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Speaker 2: Mother's Day. Yet Mother's Day had established the principle wherever

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Speaker 2: there's a sentiment, there's an opportunity to cash in. It's

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Speaker 2: frustrating to contemplate how much money we spend on crass

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Speaker 2: or superficial gestures at the urging of nakedly commercial interests.

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Speaker 2: We've touched on this problem before in our story The

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Speaker 2: Company that Canceled Christmas, when we discussed the collapse of

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Speaker 2: fair Pack and the suffering of families who felt under

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Speaker 2: huge pressure to spend money they didn't have in order

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Speaker 2: to join in with Christmas. We all know that the

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Speaker 2: money isn't the point, yet we can't find a way

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Speaker 2: to stop spending, so it's worth being thoughtful about how

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Speaker 2: much we spend on these festivals. Is this really the

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Speaker 2: best way to mark the day? Have I talked to

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Speaker 2: the person I'm supposed to buy gifts for and checked

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Speaker 2: that that's really what they want. It's hard to ignore

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Speaker 2: the social pressure, but we can at least show some resistance.

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Speaker 2: At the same time, you have to choose your battles,

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Speaker 2: which is perhaps why Anna Marie Jarvis is not really

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Speaker 2: remembered now as the creator of Mother's Day. She's remembered instead.

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Speaker 2: If she's remembered at all, as the person who tried

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Speaker 2: to cancel it, cautionary tales will return in a moment.

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Speaker 2: Just four years after that first Mother's Day celebration, in

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Speaker 2: nineteen oh eight, Anna Marie was taking steps to defend

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Speaker 2: her turf. She registered the Mother's Day International Association and

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Speaker 2: copyrighted a white carnation emblem and the phrases Mother's Day

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Speaker 2: and second Sunday in May, and tellingly, her own photograph.

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Speaker 2: Then she started to issue statements.

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Speaker 3: Any charity, institution, hospital organization or business using Mother's Day names,

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Speaker 3: work emblem, or celebration forgetting money, making sales or on

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Speaker 3: printed forms should be held as impostors by proper authorities

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Speaker 3: and reported to this association.

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Speaker 2: It was the moment when President Woodrow Wilson was about

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Speaker 2: to proclaim Mother's Day a public holiday, yet Anna Marie

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Speaker 2: Jarvis was trying to ensure that it was her personal property.

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Speaker 2: At first, her target was rival Mother's Day campaigns. She

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Speaker 2: was implacably hostile towards them. Remember, for example, Mary Towells

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Speaker 2: Sassine of Henderson, Kentucky. Long before Anna Marie Jarvis's letter

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Speaker 2: writing campaign. Sacine had persuaded Kentucky's legislature to recognize April

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Speaker 2: the twentieth as Mother's Day, and the good folk of Henderson,

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Speaker 2: Kentucky wanted some recognition for their local woman's achievement. Anna

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Speaker 2: Marie Jarvis was having none of it. Here's a friendly

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Speaker 2: telegram from Jarvis to the Henderson, Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.

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Speaker 3: Why don't you stop fraud against Mother's Day through misrepresentation

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Speaker 3: about founder? You know, no person in your town ever

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Speaker 3: gave a cent for Mother's Day, nor was its promoter.

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Speaker 3: No honest person would make such a claim. Stop the

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Speaker 3: deception and game.

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Speaker 2: This is grossly unfair. Secine had pushed the idea of

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Speaker 2: Mother's Day long before Jarvis to be sure, neither the Henderson,

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Speaker 2: Kentucky Chamber of Commerce nor the long dead Secine had

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Speaker 2: contributed to the costs of showering carnations on Jarvis's events

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Speaker 2: in May. But why would they yet the florists had.

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Speaker 2: For a few years, the florists were the perfect allies

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Speaker 2: for Anna Marie Jarvis. She wanted to be recognized as

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Speaker 2: the sole creator of Mother's Day. They wanted that too.

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Speaker 2: No matter what they might boast in their own trade journals,

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Speaker 2: they knew nobody was going to celebrate a Mother's Day

386
00:27:46,050 --> 00:27:50,530
Speaker 2: transparently created by florists and confectioners. Much better to have

387
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Speaker 2: Jarvis as their figurehead, with her own tale to tell

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Speaker 2: of a daughter's love for her long suffering mother. But

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00:27:57,970 --> 00:28:02,170
Speaker 2: relations between Javis and the florists didn't stay rosy for long.

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Speaker 2: Around nineteen twenty, Jarvis started to make a nuisance of herself.

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Speaker 2: She seems to losing control of the central project of

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Speaker 2: her life.

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Speaker 3: It is not for strangers to meddle with.

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Speaker 2: Perhaps she also felt resentful that she and her story

395
00:28:20,450 --> 00:28:24,370
Speaker 2: had been exploited, and grew tired of being an unpaid

396
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Speaker 2: saleswoman for the florists. Having showered carnations on the first

397
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Speaker 2: few Mother's Day celebrations, she announced.

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Speaker 3: We are opposed to the great waste of money for

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Speaker 3: flowers for funerals, holidays, Mother's Day and similar occasions. We

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Speaker 3: do not wish Mother's Day to have any responsibility for

401
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Speaker 3: such waste.

402
00:28:48,330 --> 00:28:52,650
Speaker 2: She created special badges with a Mother's Day design in

403
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Speaker 2: the hope that people would buy and wear them instead

404
00:28:55,650 --> 00:29:00,490
Speaker 2: of carnations. The badges showed a white carnation, the words

405
00:29:00,650 --> 00:29:08,290
Speaker 2: Mother's Day, and then in smaller type Anna Jarvis, founder Philadelphia. Understandably,

406
00:29:08,730 --> 00:29:13,450
Speaker 2: the floorists were not happy, but using her copyrights, she

407
00:29:13,610 --> 00:29:17,290
Speaker 2: repeatedly sued or threatened to sue people who designed their

408
00:29:17,330 --> 00:29:20,810
Speaker 2: own celebrations of Mother's Day. At one stage she had

409
00:29:20,850 --> 00:29:26,330
Speaker 2: more than thirty lawsuits pending, although with little success, and

410
00:29:26,410 --> 00:29:30,370
Speaker 2: she took action outside the courts too. She issued strident

411
00:29:30,450 --> 00:29:36,610
Speaker 2: press releases what will you do to rout Charlatan's bandits, pirates, racketeers, kidnappers,

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Speaker 2: and other termites that would undermine with their greed one

413
00:29:40,450 --> 00:29:45,690
Speaker 2: of the finest, noblest, and truest movements and celebrations, and

414
00:29:45,850 --> 00:29:50,250
Speaker 2: she staged protests. For example, that day when she walked

415
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Speaker 2: into her old friend John Wannamaker's opulent tea room and

416
00:29:54,730 --> 00:29:59,930
Speaker 2: dumped a Mother's Day salad on the floor. It was

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Speaker 2: a poignant protest against the commercialization of the day, and

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00:30:04,370 --> 00:30:08,810
Speaker 2: it can't possibly have achieved anything, because this is a

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Speaker 2: hope plus quest. Inventing Mother's Day and hoping it won't

420
00:30:13,290 --> 00:30:17,410
Speaker 2: be commercialized is like inventing beer and hoping people won't

421
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Speaker 2: get drunk. It's an exercise in futility. Mother's Day grew

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00:30:23,170 --> 00:30:27,330
Speaker 2: and grew as a festival of spending, leaving behind Anna

423
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Speaker 2: Marie's vision of a day of devotion and gratitude, involving

424
00:30:31,770 --> 00:30:34,930
Speaker 2: the writing of grateful letters and some prayers in church.

425
00:30:36,090 --> 00:30:40,530
Speaker 2: Some florists found her complaints embarrassing and were relieved when

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Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty two Florist's Review declared that the Jarvis

427
00:30:44,530 --> 00:30:49,970
Speaker 2: campaign had been completely squelched. Others enjoyed the controversy on

428
00:30:50,010 --> 00:30:53,330
Speaker 2: the principle that there was no such thing as bad publicity.

429
00:30:55,090 --> 00:30:59,210
Speaker 2: When her public eruptions achieved little and her legal actions

430
00:30:59,290 --> 00:31:03,610
Speaker 2: proved as fruitless as they were expensive, Anna Marie appealed

431
00:31:03,770 --> 00:31:08,130
Speaker 2: to a higher power. She wrote to President Franklin Delano

432
00:31:08,290 --> 00:31:12,730
Speaker 2: Roosevelt in nineteen thirty three, requesting that he turn aside

433
00:31:12,770 --> 00:31:16,330
Speaker 2: from ending the Great Depression for a moment and focus

434
00:31:16,370 --> 00:31:20,570
Speaker 2: on imposing legal penalties for florist's, confectioners and greetings card

435
00:31:20,610 --> 00:31:25,650
Speaker 2: companies who used her copyrighted phrase Mother's Day. It was

436
00:31:25,650 --> 00:31:28,090
Speaker 2: one of many letters she sent to the White House,

437
00:31:28,810 --> 00:31:34,370
Speaker 2: but she got nowhere. Her biographer, Catherine Lane Antelini, argues

438
00:31:34,410 --> 00:31:38,010
Speaker 2: that this dispute was about more than the commercialization of

439
00:31:38,090 --> 00:31:42,690
Speaker 2: Mother's Day. It was about recognition. Antalini told me that

440
00:31:42,810 --> 00:31:46,890
Speaker 2: Jarvis could not stand the thought of someone else getting

441
00:31:46,930 --> 00:31:51,570
Speaker 2: credit for all her work and sacrifice, and so Jarvis

442
00:31:51,650 --> 00:31:57,170
Speaker 2: took the ultimate step. She announced that she was abolishing

443
00:31:57,530 --> 00:32:04,570
Speaker 2: Mother's Day. Few people seem to have noticed. Some sources

444
00:32:04,610 --> 00:32:08,130
Speaker 2: claim that she went door to door collecting signatures for

445
00:32:08,170 --> 00:32:11,370
Speaker 2: a petition to get yet Congress to abolish the holiday

446
00:32:11,450 --> 00:32:15,930
Speaker 2: it had recognized many years before. If that's true, she

447
00:32:16,010 --> 00:32:19,850
Speaker 2: didn't succeed, but even an act of Congress would have

448
00:32:19,930 --> 00:32:24,450
Speaker 2: changed little. Nobody really cares what Congress says about commercialized

449
00:32:24,450 --> 00:32:28,810
Speaker 2: holidays anymore. In the nineteen nineties, the House of Representatives

450
00:32:28,930 --> 00:32:33,650
Speaker 2: passed a rule forbidding itself from dignifying any further silly

451
00:32:33,690 --> 00:32:40,410
Speaker 2: commemorative days. Did you notice? No, the holiday industrial complex

452
00:32:40,450 --> 00:32:43,730
Speaker 2: has rolled on, with the help of marketing campaigns and

453
00:32:43,770 --> 00:32:48,730
Speaker 2: a compliant media. Once Anna Marie Jarvis, with the help

454
00:32:48,770 --> 00:32:52,010
Speaker 2: of the florists, had managed to establish Mother's Day in

455
00:32:52,050 --> 00:32:56,770
Speaker 2: the public consciousness, something irreversible had been set in motion.

456
00:32:57,770 --> 00:33:01,130
Speaker 2: Neither she nor Congress had the power to close that

457
00:33:01,370 --> 00:33:06,810
Speaker 2: Pandora's box of carnations and candy and Mother's Day salads.

458
00:33:07,610 --> 00:33:10,530
Speaker 2: One power she hadn't lost was the power to command

459
00:33:10,570 --> 00:33:13,370
Speaker 2: the attention of the media, even if it was not

460
00:33:13,570 --> 00:33:17,130
Speaker 2: the kind of attention she wanted. In nineteen thirty eight,

461
00:33:17,930 --> 00:33:22,290
Speaker 2: Time magazine published a short article about Anna Marie Jarvis.

462
00:33:22,530 --> 00:33:26,130
Speaker 2: Anna Jarvis is the sixty year old Philadelphia spinster who

463
00:33:26,170 --> 00:33:30,410
Speaker 2: invented Mother's Day. She was seventy four, so that's not

464
00:33:30,450 --> 00:33:31,210
Speaker 2: a good start.

465
00:33:31,450 --> 00:33:34,490
Speaker 1: Whenever she thinks of what the flower shops, the candy stores,

466
00:33:34,490 --> 00:33:38,050
Speaker 1: the telegraph companies have done with her idea, she is disgusted.

467
00:33:39,010 --> 00:33:42,130
Speaker 1: Time went on to explain her record of trouble making

468
00:33:42,770 --> 00:33:45,770
Speaker 1: as part of what the magazine described as her hopeless

469
00:33:45,850 --> 00:33:50,130
Speaker 1: twenty five year fight against commercialism. Once she was arrested

470
00:33:50,130 --> 00:33:54,210
Speaker 1: for disorderly conduct for interrupting a Philadelphia meeting of American

471
00:33:54,250 --> 00:33:58,250
Speaker 1: war mothers, whom she accused of profiteering on Mother's Day carnations.

472
00:33:58,970 --> 00:34:02,410
Speaker 1: Last week, on Mother's Day, she contented herself with denouncing

473
00:34:02,490 --> 00:34:06,730
Speaker 1: a Manhattan Mother's Peace Day parade. The magazine went on

474
00:34:06,810 --> 00:34:10,770
Speaker 1: to explain that the old philadelph for her busybody, was

475
00:34:10,850 --> 00:34:15,010
Speaker 1: now a recluse, using a periscope to observe her front

476
00:34:15,010 --> 00:34:17,610
Speaker 1: door without having to show her face at the window,

477
00:34:18,010 --> 00:34:21,890
Speaker 1: and instructing her maid only to answer to a coded knock.

478
00:34:22,730 --> 00:34:26,490
Speaker 1: Time added that she wrote violent telegrams to the president,

479
00:34:27,250 --> 00:34:30,370
Speaker 1: walked around carrying a satchel full of press releases and

480
00:34:30,490 --> 00:34:34,690
Speaker 1: old publicity photographs, and had arranged her home as a

481
00:34:34,770 --> 00:34:38,690
Speaker 1: kind of shrine to her own dead mother, where she

482
00:34:38,770 --> 00:34:42,570
Speaker 1: sat alone, listening to the radio and hoping to hear

483
00:34:42,690 --> 00:34:45,970
Speaker 1: her late mother's voice come to her from another place.

484
00:34:46,890 --> 00:34:50,930
Speaker 1: Anna Marie Jarvis did exactly what you'd expect. She published

485
00:34:50,930 --> 00:34:54,570
Speaker 1: a press release declaring that the Time article was libelous

486
00:34:54,850 --> 00:35:00,370
Speaker 1: and robutting each allegation in painful detail. It's not clear

487
00:35:00,450 --> 00:35:04,050
Speaker 1: how many of the claims in Time were true. Given

488
00:35:04,050 --> 00:35:06,810
Speaker 1: that they got her age wrong, one has to wander

489
00:35:07,810 --> 00:35:12,010
Speaker 1: but it is clear that the aging Jarvis was frustrated

490
00:35:12,370 --> 00:35:16,930
Speaker 1: and isolated, and from time to time other newspapers published

491
00:35:16,930 --> 00:35:26,130
Speaker 1: stories describing her as a bitter, tragic figure. A few

492
00:35:26,170 --> 00:35:29,690
Speaker 1: weeks before Christmas in nineteen forty three, she sought help

493
00:35:29,730 --> 00:35:32,690
Speaker 1: at a hospital in Philadelphia and was moved into a

494
00:35:32,770 --> 00:35:35,970
Speaker 1: nursing home, where she spent the last four years of

495
00:35:36,010 --> 00:35:41,450
Speaker 1: her life. Blind and nearly deaf, yet to the end

496
00:35:41,530 --> 00:35:45,850
Speaker 1: of her days, she still had many admirers. In the

497
00:35:45,930 --> 00:35:48,570
Speaker 1: last year of her life, she received more than a

498
00:35:48,690 --> 00:35:53,730
Speaker 1: thousand letters from well wishers, everyone from President Truman down

499
00:35:53,730 --> 00:35:56,410
Speaker 1: to a little boy who'd heard the sad tales the

500
00:35:56,450 --> 00:36:00,650
Speaker 1: newspapers like to tell. He sent her his savings, a

501
00:36:00,690 --> 00:36:04,690
Speaker 1: dollar bill and a note, I am six years old

502
00:36:04,970 --> 00:36:08,210
Speaker 1: and I love my mother very much. I'm sending you

503
00:36:08,250 --> 00:36:14,370
Speaker 1: this because you started Mother's Day. She treasured that Anna

504
00:36:14,410 --> 00:36:19,170
Speaker 1: Marie Jarvis never had children. She always experienced Mother's Day,

505
00:36:19,570 --> 00:36:23,090
Speaker 1: not as a mother herself, but as a devoted daughter,

506
00:36:23,850 --> 00:36:26,970
Speaker 1: one of the few in her family who survived to adulthood.

507
00:36:27,650 --> 00:36:32,850
Speaker 1: Although perhaps that's not quite right. She was the proud

508
00:36:33,050 --> 00:36:38,650
Speaker 1: and perhaps over controlling mother of Mother's Day itself, but

509
00:36:39,050 --> 00:36:42,450
Speaker 1: as any mother can tell you children have minds of

510
00:36:42,490 --> 00:36:46,450
Speaker 1: their own. It's quite an achievement to create something with

511
00:36:46,490 --> 00:36:50,570
Speaker 1: its own life, something bigger than oneself. Perhaps it's too

512
00:36:50,650 --> 00:36:54,610
Speaker 1: much to expect to be able to control it too.

513
00:36:55,090 --> 00:36:58,290
Speaker 1: We need to be able to let go. Anna Marie

514
00:36:58,370 --> 00:36:59,810
Speaker 1: Jarvis couldn't.

515
00:37:00,450 --> 00:37:02,370
Speaker 3: This is the paradox of.

516
00:37:02,250 --> 00:37:04,650
Speaker 2: My life, she told one interviewer.

517
00:37:05,010 --> 00:37:08,970
Speaker 3: My greatest success is also my greatest defeat.

518
00:37:10,330 --> 00:37:14,730
Speaker 2: Anna Marie Jarvis died in nineteen forty eight. Her money

519
00:37:15,050 --> 00:37:19,370
Speaker 2: was eaten up by lawsuits. So who paid for her funeral?

520
00:37:20,410 --> 00:37:24,730
Speaker 2: The newspapers had an answer. Apparently it was paid for

521
00:37:26,010 --> 00:37:59,730
Speaker 2: by the florists. Catherine Lane Antelini's book is titled Memorializing Motherhood,

522
00:38:00,050 --> 00:38:03,370
Speaker 2: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for Control of Mother's Day.

523
00:38:04,050 --> 00:38:06,410
Speaker 2: For a full list of our sources, see the show

524
00:38:06,450 --> 00:38:12,770
Speaker 2: notes at Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by

525
00:38:12,810 --> 00:38:17,450
Speaker 2: me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright. It's produced by Alice

526
00:38:17,490 --> 00:38:21,850
Speaker 2: Fines with support from Edith Russelo. The sound design and

527
00:38:21,890 --> 00:38:26,090
Speaker 2: original music is the work of Pascal Wise. The show

528
00:38:26,250 --> 00:38:29,250
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg,

529
00:38:29,570 --> 00:38:34,570
Speaker 2: Ryan Dilley, Julia Barton, Greta Cohne, Little Millard, John Schnaz,

530
00:38:34,890 --> 00:38:40,330
Speaker 2: Carli mcgliori, Eric Sandler, Maggie Taylor, Nicolmrano, and Morgan Ratner.

531
00:38:41,450 --> 00:38:45,290
Speaker 2: Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you

532
00:38:45,410 --> 00:38:48,810
Speaker 2: like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review.

533
00:38:48,970 --> 00:38:52,250
Speaker 2: It helps us for mysterious reasons, and if you want

534
00:38:52,290 --> 00:38:55,490
Speaker 2: to hear the show, add free sign up for Pushkin

535
00:38:55,570 --> 00:38:58,770
Speaker 2: Plus on the show page and Apple Podcasts. Paul at

536
00:38:58,770 --> 00:39:15,410
Speaker 2: Pushkin dot Fm, Slash Plus, Bang