<P> In its present form, Mother's Day was established by Anna Jarvis with the help of Philadelphia merchant John Wanamaker following the death of her mother, Ann Jarvis, on May 9, 1905 . Jarvis never mentioned Howe or Mothering Sunday, and she never mentioned any connection to the Protestant school celebrations, always claiming that the creation of Mother's Day was hers alone . </P> <P> A small service was held on May 12, 1907 in the Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia, where Anna's mother had been teaching Sunday school . The first "official" service was on May 10, 1908, in the same church, accompanied by a larger ceremony in the Wanamaker Auditorium in the Wanamaker's store in Philadelphia . The next year the day was reported to be widely celebrated in New York . </P> <P> Jarvis then campaigned to establish Mother's Day first as a U.S. national holiday and then later as an international holiday . The holiday was declared officially by the state of West Virginia in 1910, and the rest of the states followed quickly . </P> <P> On May 10, 1913, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution calling on all federal government officials (from the president down) to wear a white carnation the following day in observance of Mother's Day . On May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress passed a law designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day and requesting a proclamation . The next day, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation declaring the first national Mother's Day as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war . In 1934, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved a stamp commemorating the holiday . </P>

Mother's day was first announced as a formal holiday in the usa in