Australia first celebrated a Mother's Day in 1924, although we were certainly not the first country to do so.
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Here, it is credited to Janet Heyden, who wanted to do something for the lonely and forgotten mothers (in the wake of World War I) whom she saw when visiting a friend who was also a patient at the Newington State Home for Women.
Janet's idea was to cheer them up by having local school children and businesses donate gifts, and the idea gained momentum with each successive year.
The celebration started earlier in the USA. In 1870 Julia Ward Howe, author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, attempted to start it as an anti-war movement following the American Civil War (1861-65).
Her idea was for a Mother's Day of Peace, but the campaign didn't gain enough popularity at the time.
Starting in 1908, Anna Marie Jarvis started campaigning US Congress to add a Mother's day public holiday and by 1911, following some rejections, all US states observed the holiday.
Then, in 1914, US president of the time Woodrow Wilson officially declared the second Sunday in May each year would be Mother's Day.