Anna Jarvis is the one who's most often credited with founding Mother's Day in the United States. Designated as the second Sunday in May by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914, aspects of that holiday have since spread all over the world, sometimes mingling with other local traditions. Jarvis took great pains to acquire and defend her title as “Mother of Mother's Day,” and to focus the day primarily on children celebrating their mothers.

But, as National Geographic points out, others had the idea first, and with different agendas. Julia Ward Howe, better known for writing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," promoted a Mothers’ Peace Day as early as 1872. For Howe and other antiwar activists, including Anna Jarvis's mother, Mother's Day was a way to promote global unity after the horrors of the American Civil War and Europe’s Franco-Prussian War.

Frank E. Hering, a former football coach and faculty member at University of Notre Dame, also promoted the idea of a Mother's Day before Anna Jarvis. In 1904, Hering spoke to an Indianapolis gathering of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, calling for support to “setting aside of one day in the year as a nationwide memorial to the memory of Mothers and motherhood.”

He didn't suggest a specific date for the occasion, though he did mention that Mother's Day should be held on a Sunday. Local “aeries” of the Fraternal Order of Eagles took up Hering's challenge. To this day, the organization still holds Hering and the Eagles as the “true founders of Mother's Day.”

Anna Jarvis did not like the idea of Mother's Day having a "father." She blasted Hering in an undated 1920s statement entitled “Kidnapping Mother’s Day: Will You Be an Accomplice?”

"Do me the justice of refraining from furthering the selfish interests of this claimant," Jarvis said, "who is making a desperate effort to snatch from me the rightful title of originator and founder of Mother’s Day, established by me after decades of untold labor, time, and expense."