who gave the idea to celebrate international women's day
International Women's Day In August 1910, an International Socialist Women's Conference was organized to precede the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen, Denmark.[11] Inspired in part by the American socialists, German Socialist Luise Zietz proposed the establishment of an annual Women's Day and was seconded by fellow socialist and later communist leader Clara Zetkin, supported by Käte Duncker, although no date was specified at that conference.[12][13] Delegates (100 women from 17 countries) agreed with the idea as a strategy to promote equal rights including suffrage for women.[14] The following year on March 19, 1911, IWD was marked for the first time, by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland.[6] In the Austro-Hungarian Empire alone, there were 300 demonstrations.[12] In Vienna, women paraded on the Ringstrasse and carried banners honouring the martyrs of the Paris Commune.[12] Women demanded that they be given the right to vote and to hold public office. They also protested against employment sex discrimination.[3] The Americans continued to celebrate National Women's Day on the last Sunday in February.[12]
Mother's Day In 1908, the U.S. Congress rejected a proposal to make Mother's Day an official holiday, joking that they would also have to proclaim a "Mother-in-law's Day".[12] However, owing to the efforts of Anna Jarvis, by 1911 all U.S. states observed the holiday,[13] with some of them officially recognizing Mother's Day as a local holiday[14] (the first being West Virginia, Jarvis' home state, in 1910). In 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating Mother's Day, held on the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday to honor mothers.[15]