June 19, 2022
“The disciples’ mistake was also my mistake: They forgot that they have a God who created the universe out of ‘nothing,’ that can put flesh on dry bones ‘nothing,’ that can put life in a dusty womb ‘nothing.’ I mean, let’s face it, ‘nothing’ is God’s favorite material to work with. – Nadia Bolz-Weber
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The History of Father’s Day
By AncestralFindings.com
Father’s Day actually has roots going back to the early Middle ages, just after the fall of the Roman Empire in Europe. Churches celebrated a version. But, it took until the 1970’s, for it to become a nationally recognized holiday in the United States. Here is the story of Father’s Day.
Father’s Day hasn’t been celebrated in America for as long as Mother’s Day has, but it is no less important to us now.
A primitive, early version of Father’s Day was first officially celebrated in the Catholic nations of Europe in 1508. It was called Saint Joseph’s Day and was celebrated each year on March 19. It commemorated Joseph, the husband of Mary, and how he raised Jesus as his own. Joseph was held up to be the ideal example of earthly fatherhood. Other fathers were to reflect on his example and emulate it with all children under their care, biological or otherwise.
Celebrating fatherhood of all kinds on St. Joseph’s Day was being encouraged by Catholic church leaders going back to the late 1300’s, or early 1400’s. The Franciscans are understood to be the first supporters of this kind of celebration. The celebration was brought to North America, Central America, and South America by Portuguese and Spanish explorers and settlers.
Of course, the Catholic church does not have a monopoly on celebrating fatherhood. The earlier Coptic Orthodox church was celebrating fatherhood on St. Joseph’s Day on July 20 each year as far back as the 400 A.D.s.
There is an International Men’s Day that many countries around the world celebrate on November 19 each year. This holiday celebrates all men and boys, including fathers. So, even in countries without an official Father’s Day, there is an informal one with this internationally celebrated holiday.
Outside of people in the Catholic church, there was no official Father’s Day celebrated in the United States until the early twentieth century. The first Father’s Day celebration in the United States was celebrated in Fairmont, West Virginia on July 5, 1908, at the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, which is now called the Central United Methodist Church.
The celebration was initiated by a woman named Grace Golden Clayton, who was mourning the loss of her father in a December 1907 mining accident. In fact, 361 men, 250 of whom were fathers, were killed in that accident, which left thousands of children without fathers in the area. Grace suggested the Father’s Day celebration to her pastor at the church to honor all the fathers lost in that accident, and he agreed to do it.
Other attempts at establishing a national Father’s Day were made around the country over the next several days, usually by women wishing to honor their own fathers, but they were soundly turned down. The number of people suggesting a national Father’s Day over the next few years led to many different people claiming that Father’s Day in the United States was their idea.
The acceptance of Father’s Day in the United Stated finally happened in 1910, when a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd wanted to honor her father, a Civil War veteran named William Jackson Smart, who had raised six children on his own after the loss of his wife. Sonora lived in Spokane, Washington, and convinced the pastor of her Presbyterian Church to give a Father’s Day sermon. She wanted it to be on June 5, which was her father’s birthday, but her pastor did not have enough time to prepare a sermon. Instead, it was celebrated on June 19, 1910, which was the third Sunday in June. Other pastors around the city also got on board with the idea, and Father’s Day was celebrated citywide in Spokane that year.
The celebration faded into obscurity in the 1920’s, while Sonora was away studying at the Art Institute of Chicago. However, she brought it back to town in the 1930’s, and began working to raise awareness of Father’s Day nationwide. She got manufacturers of things like ties, pipes, mugs, and other traditional gifts for fathers on board to help her promote it, as this would economically benefit them. The holiday began being celebrated in many places nationwide by 1938, but it was resisted by Americans for a long time because they viewed it as merely a commercial scheme to reproduce the success of the previously established Mother’s Day. Men’s retailers continued to promote the holiday, with the help of the newly established Father’s Day Council in New York, and they even incorporated some of the ridicule of the holiday into their advertisements.
Attempts to make Father’s Day a nationally recognized holiday continued for decades, but Congress did not like the commercial connotations of it. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge tried, without success, to establish a national Father’s Day holiday. Eventually, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first official Father’s Day proclamation in the United States, making it the third Sunday in June. In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed a bill into law finally making Father’s Day a nationally recognized holiday.
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From the PVCC newsletter archives, this week in 1968: Despite all our promises and pledges…judicial and legislative victories…in the past few years, the fact is that millions of people in our nation are hungry and forced to live in substandard dwellings. The Poor Peoples’ Campaign in Washington in the same fashion as any legal lobbying group is trying to bring to the attention of Congress legislation that needs to be acted upon to make these promises come true.
— Melanie Naden, PVCC Moderator