History of Fathers Day: The Beginning
Father’s Day
HISTORY OF FATHER’S DAY
[NOTE: I wrote a longer and more serious version of this article for CBS.com several years ago. It has been published on their network of sites for major cities nationwide. You can find that article here.]
The celebration of Father’s Day goes back to the beginning, actually to the Garden of Eden, when Abel gave his father Adam a razor while his brother Cain gave his father a snake-skin tie. This was the beginning of Cain’s downward slide.
Contrasts with Mother’s Day
Scholars have debated for ages why Mother’s Day seems to be more honored than Father’s Day. This phenomenon has been compared to the difference in popularity between the Irish and Italian patron saints.
Father’s Day in the Medieval Period
The noted scholar, Father Guido Sarducci, papal legate and gossip columnist for the Vatican Enquirer, has pointed out that for St. Patrick’s Day, we have lots of festivities, lots of green celebrations, and major parades.
“But for St. Joseph, a very good saint, there is nothing.
The only thing he is known for is children’s aspirin.”
Dr. Les Capable of Stanford University confirmed this research by saying, “Ditto.” Professor Illinois Smith of the Department of Redundancy Department at the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, said pretty much the same thing by repeating it over and over again, many times, in a redundant and repetitive manner.
It is no accident that in Europe, Catholic tradition places the celebration of Father’s Day on March 19, St. Joseph’s Day, the patron saint of fathers. It is the same in the Spanish- and Portuguese-colonized parts of Latin America.
Renaissance Celebration of Father’s Day
Pope Hallmark first canonized the holiday in 1582 in the Papal Bull entitled Quando Ipso Facto Volare FTD Que Sera Sera, which roughly translates to “When you care enough to send the very best.”
This was confirmed years later in the United States, when one of the founding matriarchs, Ma Bell, ordained and established both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day to bolster the fledgling nation’s telecommunications coffers. It is well known that Mother’s Day generally posts the highest volume of long-distance telephone calls of any single day of the year. It is not as well known that Father’s Day posts the highest volume of long-distance collect calls.
The Real Story: Father’s Day in Modern Times
Fittingly, the idea of a modern Father’s Day was first proposed in the United States only a year after the first modern Mother’s Day observance (1908). In 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd, a woman in Spokane, Washington, was listening to a Mother’s Day sermon one Sunday in church and wondered why there wasn’t a similar holiday to honor fathers. Her father, William Jackson Smart, a Civil War veteran, had raised her and her five brothers alone after her mother died in childbirth. She appealed to local clergy and YMCA leaders to make Father’s Day a celebration, and it did so on June 19, 1910.
Since the early 20th century, it has been celebrated with the support of civic organizations. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge encouraged states to observe it, which, decades later, led to the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers in 1966 by Lyndon B. Johnson. His successor, Richard Nixon, made it a permanent holiday by signing it into law. The holiday is celebrated on the third Sunday of June to give loving children plenty of time to buy last-minute Father’s Day presents.
Personal Reflection on Father’s Day
Everyone has had a father, but not everyone rises to the calling of being one. Nevertheless, few challenges in the world are more rewarding than being a father. It is a special joy and a great honor.
As we celebrate Father’s Day, it is noteworthy that the Bible refers to the Almighty as Father.
“Children’s children are the crown of old men;
and the glory of children are their fathers.”
–Proverbs 17:6
How do you celebrate Father’s Day?
Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com
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