Mother's Day celebration has roots in U.S. history

From Wisconsin-

As families in dozens of countries around the world celebrate mothers today, a lot has changed since the holiday first began more than a century ago, historians say.

Although some of those celebrations can be traced back to ancient Greek and Roman festivals and later a Roman Catholic commemoration of Mary, the mother of Jesus, many historians give credit to a West Virginia mother of 12 and her daughter for establishing the first modern Mother's Day celebration more than a century ago.

In 1868, Anna Reeves Jarvis created a committee to establish what she called Mother's Friendship Day, "to reunite families that had been divided during the Civil War," according to the National Women's History Project.

More here-

http://www.wisconsinrapidstribune.com/article/20120513/WRT0101/305130094/Mother-s-Day-celebration-has-roots-U-S-history?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CWRT-News