Which U.S. state first recognized Mother's Day as an official holiday?

West Virginia was the first U.S. state to recognize Mother’s Day as an official holiday.

The state officially recognized the holiday in 1910, two years after Anna Jarvis organized the first official observance in Grafton, West Virginia. Jarvis’s connection to the state was personal: her mother had lived and worked there, and the first service took place at the local Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church.

West Virginia’s action helped validate Jarvis’s campaign to make Mother’s Day a recognized public observance. Other states followed quickly, and by 1911 all U.S. states observed the holiday in some form. This state-level recognition came before federal adoption.

A common mix-up is 1914, the year President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation establishing Mother’s Day as a national U.S. observance on the second Sunday of May. Another is 1908, which identifies the first official celebration rather than the first state recognition. West Virginia is the answer for the state-level milestone.