<\/p>\n
Most people think of Mother’s Day as a quaint and
\nconservative holiday honoring 1950s values, a sort of historical throw back to
\ntraditional notions of hearth and home.<\/p>\n
Let’s correct that impression by saying:\u00a0 <\/span>Happy Progressive Mother’s Day.<\/p>\n In May 1907, Anna Jarvis, a member of a Methodist Anna Jarvis intended the new holiday to honor all mothers The first Mother’s Day wasn’t sentimental or old-fashioned at all. \u00a0It was about work, motherhood, health care, peace, and politics–and making the world a better place for women and their children.<\/p>\n Happy Progressive Mother’s Day! \u00a0And give some radical women in your life a hug today.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most people think of Mother’s Day as a quaint and conservative holiday honoring 1950s values, a sort of historical throw back to traditional notions of hearth and home. Let’s correct that impression by saying:\u00a0 Happy Progressive Mother’s Day. In May 1907, Anna Jarvis, a member of a Methodist congregation in Grafton, West Virginia, passed out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,36,14,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christians","category-defining-progressive","category-mainline-protestants","category-religion-in-the-public-square"],"yoast_head":"\n
\ncongregation in Grafton, West Virginia, passed out 500 white carnations in
\nchurch to commemorate the life of her mother.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>One year later, the same Methodist church created a
\nspecial service to honor mothers.\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span>Many progressive Christian organizations–like the YMCA and the World
\nSunday School Association–picked up the cause and lobbied Congress to make
\nMother’s Day a national holiday.\u00a0
\n<\/span>And, in 1914, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson made it official and
\nsigned Mother’s Day into law.\u00a0 <\/span>Thus
\nbegan the modern celebration of Mother’s Day in the United States.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\nbeginning with her own–Anna Reeves Jarvis, who had died in 1905.\u00a0 <\/span>Although now largely forgotten, Anna
\nReeves Jarvis was a social activist and community organizer.\u00a0 <\/span>In 1858, Anna Reeves Jarvis organized
\npoor women in West Virginia into “Mothers’ Work Day Clubs” to raise the issue
\nof clean water and sanitation in relation to the lives of women and
\nchildren.\u00a0 <\/span>She also worked for
\nuniversal access to medicine for the poor.\u00a0 <\/span>Reeves Jarvis was a pacifist who served both sides in
\nthe Civil War by working for camp sanitation and medical care for soldiers of
\nthe North and the South.\u00a0 <\/span>In short,
\nMother’s Day was founded to celebrate a radical community organizer who favored
\nuniversal health care and was a pacifist.<\/p>\n