After Mother's Day

After founding the holiday and pushing for its widespread celebration, Jarvis began to face many challenges. Firstly, florists began to increase the price of white carnations (the flower that symbolizes Mother's Day) which led her to encourage the boycott of those florists. As people pushed for the commercialization of Mother's Day, it began to become a money maker rather than a day to honor mothers. Jarvis fought this by threatening to sue large celebrations and even crashing a celebration in Philadelphia in 1925. After realizing there was nothing she could do to stop this commercialization, Jarvis tried to end the holiday in 1940 because it was not what she intended to create. She even said that "she was sorry she had ever started Mother’s Day." In 1944, 80 year-old Anna Jarvis was placed in Marshall Square Sanitarium, a mental facility. She ultimately died at age 84, never having any children and never making any money off of Mother's Day.