Fathers Day

Father's Day is a widely known celebration honoring fathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society. It is celebrated on the third Sunday of June in many countries and on other days elsewhere. It complements Mother's Day, the celebration honoring mothers. Contents[hide] * 1 History * 1. 1 Commercialization * 2 Spelling * 3 Dates around the world * 4 International history and traditions * 4. 1 Argentina * 4. 2 Australia * 4. 3 Costa Rica * 4. 4 Denmark * 4. 5 Germany * 4. 6 Hindu tradition * 4. Japan * 4. 8 Seychelles * 4. 9 Nepal * 4. 10 New Zealand * 4. 11 The Philippines * 4. 12 Roman Catholic tradition * 4. 13 Romania * 4. 14 Singapore * 4. 15 Taiwan * 4. 16 Thailand * 4. 17 United Kingdom * 4. 18 United States of America * 4. 18. 1 Antecedent * 5 See also * 6 References * 6. 1 Bibliography * 7 External links| [edit] History Father's Day is a celebration inaugurated in the early twentieth century to complement Mother's Day in celebrating fatherhood and male parenting. It is also celebrated to honor and commemorate our forefathers. Father's Day is celebrated on a variety of dates worldwide and typically involves gift-giving, special dinners to fathers, and family-oriented activities. Contrary to popular belief, the first observance of Father's Day actually took place in Fairmont, West Virginia on July 5, 1908. The special day was organized by Mrs. Grace Golden Clayton, who wanted to celebrate the lives of the 210 fathers who had been lost in the Monongah Mining disaster several months earlier in Monongah, West Virginia, on December 6, 1907. The First Father's Day Church, now the Central United Methodist Church, still stands in Fairmont today. [1] Various other sources believe (possibly because West Virginia did not officially register the holiday. [citation needed]) that the first Father's Day was held nearly two years later on June 19, 1910 through the efforts of Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington. After listening to a church sermon at Spokane's Central Methodist Episcopal Church in 1909 about the newly recognized Mother's Day, Dodd felt strongly that fatherhood needed recognition, as well. 2] She wanted a celebration that honored fathers like her own father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran who was left to raise his family alone when his wife died giving birth to their sixth child when Sonora was 16 years old. [3] The following year with the assistance of Reverend Dr. Conrad Bluhm, her pastor at Old Centenary Presbyterian Church (now Knox Presbyterian Church), Sonora took the idea to the Spokane YMCA. The Spokane YMCA, along with the Ministerial Alliance, endorsed Dodd’s idea and helped it spread by celebrating the first Father’s Day in 1910. Sonora suggested her father’s birthday, June 5, be established as the day to honor all Fathers. However, the pastors wanted more time to prepare, so on June 19, 1910, young members of the YMCA went to church wearing roses: a red rose to honor a living father, and a white rose to honor a deceased one. [3] Dodd traveled through the city in a horse-drawn carriage, carrying gifts to shut-in fathers confined indoors by illness. [3] It took many years to make the holiday official. In spite of support from the YWCA, the YMCA, and churches, Father's Day ran the risk of disappearing from the calendar. [4] Where Mother's Day was met with enthusiasm, Father's Day was often met with laughter. [4] The holiday was gathering attention slowly, but for the wrong reasons. It was the target of much satire, parody and derision, including jokes from the local newspaper Spokesman-Review. [4] Many people saw it as the first step in filling the calendar with mindless promotions. [4] A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913. 5] In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak in a Father's Day celebration and wanted to make it official, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized. [3] US President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed by the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation. Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress. [6] In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents"[6] In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. [3] Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972. [3][6] In 2010, the Father's Day Centennial Celebration[7] occurs in Spokane with a month of events commemorating the day. In addition to Father's Day, International Men's Day is celebrated in many countries on November 19 for men and boys who are not fathers. [edit] Commercialization The Associated Men's Wear Retailers formed a National Father's Day Committee in New York City in the 1930s, which was renamed in 1938 to National Council for the Promotion of Father's Day and incorporated several other trade groups. [8] This council had the goals of legitimizing the holiday in the mind of the people and managing the holiday as a commercial event in a more systematic way, in order to boost the sales during the holiday. [8] This council always had the support of Dodd, who had no problem with the commercialization of the holiday and endorsed several promotions to increase the amount of gifts. 9] In this aspect she can be considered the opposite of Anna Jarvis, who actively opposed all commercialization of Mother's Day. [9] The merchants recognized the tendency to parody and satirize the holiday, and used it to their benefit by mocking the holiday on the same advertisements where they promoted the gifts for fathers. [10] People felt compelled to buy gifts even though they saw through the commercial facade, and the custom of giving gifts on that day became progressively more accepted. [10] By 1937 the Father's Day Council calculated that only one father in six had received a present on that day. 10] However, by the 1980s, the Council proclaimed that they had achieved their goal: the one-day event had become a three-week commercial event, a "second Christmas". [10] Its executive director explained back in 1949 that, without the coordinated efforts of the Council and of the groups supporting it, the holiday would have disappeared. [10] [edit] Spelling Although the name of the event is usually understood as a plural possessive (i. e. "day belonging to fathers"), which would under normal English punctuation guidelines be spelled "Fathers' Day", the most common spelling is "Father's Day", as if it were a singular possessive (i. . "day belonging to Father"). In the United States, Dodd used the "Fathers' Day" spelling on her original petition for the holiday,[2] but the spelling "Father's Day" was already used in 1913 when a bill was introduced to the U. S. Congress as the first attempt to establish the holiday,[5] and it was still spelled the same way when its creator was commended in 2008 by the U. S. Congress. [11] [edit] Dates around the world The officially recognized date of Father's Day varies from country to country. This section lists some significant examples, in order of date of observance.

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