From Philadelphia, Anna M. Jarvis sent 500 carnations to this church, which she had attended as a youth, to be distributed at morning services on Sunday, May 10, 1908 to honor mothers. Philadelphia merchant John Wanamaker, who had joined her cause to establish Mother's Day, held an afternoon service in his store the same day. The movement, a combination of religious and commercial interests, grew rapidly, and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that the second Sunday in May would be observed annually as Mother's Day throughout the nation. The church where it all began is now the International Mother's Day Shrine and is open to the public.

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Information courtesy of the National Park Service.

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