While fathers themselves don’t take a second place in the family to mothers, the occasion of Father’s Day certainly has a history of doing so. The holiday wasn’t made official until 1972—a full fifty-eight years after the holiday from which it took inspiration. Why was there such a delay?
We have been showing affection to our dads as long as there have been dads around to show affection to, of course, holiday or not. The first recorded instance of such was in Babylon nearly 4,000 years ago. A youth by the name of Elmescu carved a message in clay to his father with a special wish for good health and a long life. This is regarded as the first Father’s Day card.
The origins of modern Father’s Day began much later in the early twentieth century. On July 5, 1908 in Fairmont, West Virginia, Grace Golden Clayton proposed a church service honoring all fathers, especially those who had recently perished in a local mine disaster. It was a success. However, the observance was not an annual event and only known by local attendees.
The next year Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, proposed a Father’s Day similar to what Anna Jarvis had created for mothers. Dodd and her four brothers were raised solely by their father after their mother died in childbirth. She petitioned the YMCA and the Spokane Ministerial Association to set aside June 5th, her father’s birthday, for the special sermon. She was successful, but the date was moved to the third Sunday in June to give more time to prepare between the holidays. On June 19, 1910, the first Father’s Day commenced, and Dodd urged people to wear a white rose for a deceased father and a red one for a living father.
While the movement gained attention and popularity, it didn’t pass a bill to become a national holiday as readily as Mother’s Day had. The views of the time may have played a part, when fathers eschewed sentiment, and they disdained the idea that flowers and silly gifts would emasculate them. There was also a lot of public scorn against receiving a gift that, as the main breadwinner, one would essentially be gifting to themselves.
While the first bill failed, the idea of celebrating fathers didn’t. In the 20s and 30s, an effort was made to combine holidays into a “Parents Day”, but the Great Depression derailed that as struggling retailers attempted to reinvent Father’s Day into a “second Christmas for Fathers” and tempt the public into spending more on manly gift items to reinvigorate the economy. Then World War II brought a groundswell of support for men and fathers. As the father’s role in the household began to change over the years, first a resolution was passed by Calvin Coolidge in favor of Father’s Day, then Lyndon B. Johnson signed an executive order that it be celebrated on the third Sunday in June, permanently fixing the date on our calendar as we know it today. Finally, Congress passed an act in 1972 under Richard Nixon making Father’s Day an official holiday. Sonora Smart Dodd died six years later, having lived to see her efforts come to fruition. Today, we spend as much money on dads as we do on our moms, with a record 23 billion spent for Father’s Day in 2023.
Father’s Day is not unique to the U.S. In Thailand, it is celebrated on December 5, the date of the former king’s birthday. Taiwan has chosen the eighth day of the eighth month, because the Mandarin word for eight sounds like “Papa.” In Belgium, Portugal and Spain, which are traditionally Catholic countries, Father’s Day falls on March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph. Sweden chose November and New Zealand’s is on the first Sunday of September. You can be sure that wherever there are dads, there is a day to honor them. How will you spend this Father’s Day with yours?
