- Buddy, do you think it's weird
that I think of myself as your mom?
You know, or your step-mom,
because technically
you were here when I moved in.
Do you like having a dog step-mom, Buddy?
Cuz you turned away from me and I'm feeling like
there are things that you wanna say,
but you can't say.
I think he just farted.
(funky music)
On May 10, 1908, a rather cranky woman named Anna Jarvis
celebrated the very first Mother's Day.
And I say cranky because, as Mother's Day became
more and more popular in the United States,
Anna Jarvis did not like the commercialization.
For instance, it's one of the most popular days of the year
for flower sales.
Because we say I love you to our moms through flowers,
and also with food.
Mother's Day is the most popular day of the year
to go out to a restaurant.
And ironically, Anna Jarvis, the inventor of Mother's Day,
never herself became a mother.
But, enough about Anna Jarvis,
let's talk about some incredible accomplished
famous mothers you should know about,
who not only deserve bouquets of flowers,
but also like a million meals at, I don't know,
like Red Lobster,
or something really good.
Famous mom number one is named Mary Wollstonecraft
and in 1787, this mother wrote a book with a very long title
called--
(breathes in)
"Thoughts on the Education of Daughters
"with Reflections on Female Conduct in the
"More Important Duties of Life"
Bam!
It outlined her theories about how women
should be educated to be more than just wives and daughters,
and if that sounds a little radical to you,
it makes sense because in 1792,
she published her most famous book called
"Vindication of the Rights of Women"
which is one of the earliest modern feminist texts.
She died five years later,
before she was able to educate her daughters,
but her daughter Mary wrote a literary classic
you've probably heard of,
"Frankenstein".
Hmm.
Marie Curie is a famous mother you've probably heard of
and this woman was radioactive in how successful she was.
In 1903, she won her first Nobel Prize,
this time in physics,
and she shared it with her husband Pierre,
for the research isolating the radioactive isotopes
polonium and radium.
And then in 1911, she was like,
"Hey, I think I want another Nobel,"
and so she got it that time in chemistry.
Now it's worth noting that by 1911,
Pierre had been killed in a tragic
horse-drawn carriage accident,
so she was a single mother of two.
She devoted herself tirelessly to her work,
sometimes to the detriment of childcare,
but nonetheless, her daughter Eve wrote a
best-selling biography of Marie,
which came out in 1943.
Her daughter Irene also followed
in her scientific footsteps,
earning a Nobel Prize herself in 1935
for work with her husband, also on radioactivity.
Now tragically, both Marie and her daughter Irene
died from leukemia,
and some think it's linked to their research
on radioactive material.
Florence Owens Thompson probably has the most
recognizable face among our famous mothers
because her photograph taken by
Works Progress Administration photographer Dorothea Lang,
became the face of the Great Depression.
It was also known as "Migrant Mother"
because she and her family were living at poverty level
out in California, surviving by picking peas.
And her photograph at that time had such a huge
emotional impact on the American public,
that the government sent out 22,000 pounds of food
to the encampment where Thompson and her family lived.
But it wasn't until 1975 that Thompson stepped forward
to identify herself as the person in that famous photograph,
finally giving us a sense of the person behind the face.
Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn,
say that ten times fast, Buddy,
was a famous mother of a future famous mother.
A highly educated woman for her time,
she earned both her chemistry and physics masters
from Bryn Mawr College in 1900.
She was also a staunch suffragette,
and her platform was sex education and birth control.
That's right, a woman was stumping for birth control
in the early 20th century.
Pretty unheard of.
She would go on to have six children with her husband,
one of whom was Katharine Hepburn,
who would also follow in her mother's more radical steps,
stumping for Planned Parenthood when she was an adult.
Famous mother Coretta Scott King is one of the
most iconic faces of the Civil Rights Movement.
The wife of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
who was assassinated in 1968,
she became a single mother of four at the time,
but continued to travel and promote the message
that her husband had left behind.
She also worked hard lobbying the government
to establish a national holiday to commemorate
Dr. King's legacy.
And in 1983, President Reagan signed it into law.
In the King family's hometown of Atlanta, Georgia,
Coretta Scott King also established the King Center,
which works to promote non-violent social change.
Quite an important mother, indeed...
For all of us.
Even for you, Bubby.
So which famous mother do you think
should be added to the list?
Let us know in the comments below
and hey, if you wanna learn about more famous moms,
you can read "Ten Famous Mothers" written by yours truly,
over at howstuffworks.com.
And if you'd like to watch some more videos,
well we've got a ton of Mother's Day
fun stuff for you to watch.
Head on over to Brain Stuff
where I'll teach you about maternity leave,
and it's stuff mom never told you.
I will blow your mind with the phenomenon
of baby fever.
Watch out, gals.
It's contagious.
(giggles)
Isn't that right, puppy?
You're a boy so you can't get it.
I think you can't make babies anyway.
(laughs)
I don't know. Okay.
- [Voiceover] That was awesome.