Unidentified

Unidentified, May 9, 1948

This unidentified Mother's Day dinner menu depicts a locket with a half-length pink silhouette of a woman surrounded by two carnations. Mothers have always been celebrated, even if informally, but it is Anna Jarvis who is recognized as the founder of the Mother's Day we celebrate today. In May 1908, Jarvis held a memorial for her deceased mother, who had for a long time desired a day for all mothers to be honored. It was also at that ceremony that Jarvis handed out white carnations, her mother's favorite flower, thus beginning the now traditional association of carnations with the holiday. President Woodrow Wilson made Mother's Day a national holiday in 1914. Later in her life, Jarvis fought against how commercialized the holiday had become.

From the Culinary Institute of America Menu Collection, menu 1-1125.