By Pete Gawda
The first recorded Father’s Day, according to the website, howstuffworks.com, was held July 5, 1908, at the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South in Fairmont. A service honored 360 men, mostly fathers, who had died in a mining explosion. The celebration was not repeated the following year and received little recognition outside the immediate area.
West Virginia erected a historical marker in 1985 claiming credit for the first Father’s Day, although it did not acknowledge credit for establishing the national holiday.
The originator of Father’s Day is generally considered to be Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, as stated in the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Her father, William Smart, was a Civil War veteran who raised his six children alone after his wife died while giving birth to their youngest child. After attending a Mother’s Day church service in 1908, Dodd came up with the idea of a holiday to honor her father and all fathers.
With the backing of the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA, the first Father’s Day church services were held in Spokane churches on June 19, 1910. Members of the YMCA wore red roses on their lapels to honor living fathers and white roses to honor deceased fathers. That practice, copied from Mother’s Day traditions, did not survive.
Father’s Day was slower to gain popularity than Mother’s Day. Lawrence R. Samuel, author of American Fatherhood: A Cultural History, noted that men had a different role in the family during the first half of the 20th century. Many believed it was unnecessary to honor fathers when mothers were viewed as the more under-appreciated parent.
According to history.com, during the 1920s and 1930s there was a movement to replace both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day with a single Parents’ Day holiday. The idea never gained traction.
Two significant events contributed to the popularity of Father’s Day, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. During the Great Depression, struggling storeowners promoted the holiday to encourage children to buy gifts for their fathers. Later, during World War II, Father’s Day became a way to recognize fathers serving in the military or supporting the war effort.
Despite its growing popularity, it took 62 years for Father’s Day to become a national holiday. A bill was introduced in Congress in 1913 to make Father’s Day a national holiday, according to sandiegoreader.com, but lawmakers feared excessive commercialism and the measure failed.
In 1924, Calvin Coolidge recommended that Father’s Day be observed nationwide. In 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson signed a proclamation designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. However, it did not officially become a national holiday until 1972, when Richard Nixon signed the legislation to permanently establish Father’s Day.
