Who made a 1904 plea for a nationwide memorial day for mothers and motherhood?

Frank E. Hering made a 1904 plea for a nationwide memorial day for mothers and motherhood. Hering was a University of Notre Dame alumnus and administrator and later served as president of the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

His interest reportedly began after he saw Notre Dame students sending penny postcards home to their mothers. He argued that the United States should set aside one day each year to honor mothers and motherhood. Hering then spent years publicly promoting a national observance.

Hering is sometimes overlooked because Anna Jarvis is widely credited with establishing the modern American Mother’s Day. Jarvis led the later campaign that produced the first widely recognized services in 1908 and the federal observance established in 1914. Hering’s 1904 appeal belongs to the earlier advocacy stage.

Other names can cause confusion. Julia Ward Howe promoted a Mother’s Day for Peace in the 1870s, while John Wanamaker supported Anna Jarvis’s 1908 celebration. Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the official national observance in 1914, but he did not make the original 1904 plea.