On May 9th, 1905, a Philadelphia girl named Anna Jarvis lost her mother. Anna, who had loved her mother very deeply, wanted to create an opportunity to honor her mother, and together with some supporters embarked upon a campaign to spread the idea of a "Mother's Day."

The idea gradually gained popularity around the United States, and in 1914, the then president Thomas Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May "Mother's Day," and it became recognized as a national holiday.

Carnations became a traditional Mother's Day present because white carnations were Anna's mother's favorite flower, and were displayed at her funeral.

Washington citizen William Jackson Smart, a widower, raised six children as a single father. His daughter, Sonora Smart Dodd, heard about Mother's Day and felt that there should be a day to honor fathers too. On June 19, 1909, she suggested establishing Father's Day. The Father's Day tradition spread from then on, and it became recognized as an official holiday in America in 1972.

It is said that the tradition of giving roses on Father's Day comes from the fact that Ms. Dodd decorated her father's grave with roses.