Father’s Day is annually observed on the third Sunday in June, and this year it falls on 18 June.
This day is set aside to honour the role fathers play in the family structure as well as in society. After the success of Mother’s Day, Father’s Day observations began to appear, but the road to this national observance was not easy.
• The first recorded Father’s Day celebration was in December 1907 after the Monograph Mining Disaster. During this event, 361 men were killed, resulting in about 1 000 children being left fatherless. Grace Golden Clayton suggested to her pastor, Robert Thomas Webb, that they should set aside a day honouring all those fathers. A gathering in honour of these men took place on 5 July 1908 at the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South in West Virginia, as it was known then.
• The YMCA in Spokane, Washington, with the help of Sonora Smart Dodd, recruited several clergymen in 1910 to honour fathers throughout the city. The initial date was set for 5 June, but because many of the clergymen needed more time to prepare, it was moved to 19 June (the third Sunday in June).
• Harry C Meek, a member of Lions Clubs International, claimed that in 1915 he was the first one to come up with the idea of Father’s Day. He argued that the third Sunday of June was chosen because it was his birthday. The Lions Club has named him Originator of Father’s Day and he made many attempts to promote it as an official holiday.
• President Woodrow Wilson, after visiting Spokane in 1916 to speak at a Father’s Day celebration, wanted to make it official, but Congress resisted. They feared that the observation would become too commercialised.
• In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge stopped short of a National Proclamation.
• Sonora Smart Dodd did not stop to try and make Father’s Day a national observation, and in 1938 she collaborated with the Father’s Day Council – a group of New York men’s wear retailers – for the commercial promotion of the observation. For decades many Americans resisted the holiday because of these commercialisation attempts.
• The first presidential proclamation honouring fathers on the third Sunday in June, was issued in 1966 by President Lyndon B Johnson.
• President Richard Nixon signed a permanent holiday into law in 1972 – more than 50 years after Mother’s Day came into existence.
Father’s Day is now celebrated in many countries around the world, and you can join in by spoiling your dad today. Take him some breakfast in bed, make sure he has the Sunday newspaper, and – just for today – give him ownership of the television remote.
Use #Father’sDay to post on social media.
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