History and traditions of Father's Day

A customary day for the celebration of fatherhood in Catholic Europe is known to date back to at least the Middle Ages, and it is observed on 19 March, as the feast day of Saint Joseph, who is referred to as the fatherly Nutritor Domini ("Nourisher of the Lord") in Catholicism and "the putative father of Jesus" in southern European tradition. This celebration was brought to the Americans by the Spanish and Portuguese, and in Latin America, Father's Day is still celebrated on 19 March. The Catholic church actively supported the custom of a celebration of fatherhood on St. Joseph's day from either the last years of the 14th century or from the early 15th century, apparently on the initiative of the Franciscans.

In the Coptic Church, the celebration of fatherhood is also observed on St Joseph's Day, but the Copts observe this celebration on July 20. This Coptic celebration may date back to the fifth century.On June 19, 1910, a Father's Day celebration was held at the YMCA in Spokane, Washington by Sonora Smart Dodd.[7][8] Her father, the civil war veteran William Jackson Smart, was a single parent who raised his six children there.[7] She was also a member of Old Centenary Presbyterian Church (now Knox Presbyterian Church),[9] where she first proposed the idea. After hearing a sermon about Jarvis' Mother's Day in 1909 at Central Methodist Episcopal Church, she told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday to honor them.[7] Although she initially suggested June 5, her father's birthday, the pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday in June.[1][6] Several local clergymen accepted the idea, and on June 19, 1910, the first Father's Day, "sermons honoring fathers were presented throughout the city".[10]

However, in the 1920s, Dodd stopped promoting the celebration because she was studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, and it faded into relative obscurity, even in Spokane.[11] In the 1930s, Dodd returned to Spokane and started promoting the celebration again, raising awareness at a national level.[12] She had the help of those trade groups that would benefit most from the holiday, for example the manufacturers of ties, tobacco pipes, and any traditional present for fathers.[13] By 1938, she had the help of the Father's Day Council, founded by the New York Associated Men's Wear Retailers to consolidate and systematize the holiday's commercial promotion.[14] Americans resisted the holiday for its first few decades, viewing it as nothing more than an attempt by merchants to replicate the commercial success of Mother's Day, and newspapers frequently featured cynical and sarcastic attacks and jokes.[15] However, the said merchants remained resilient and even incorporated these attacks into their advertisements.[16] By the mid-1980s, the Father's Day Council wrote, "(...) [Father's Day] has become a Second Christmas for all the men's gift-oriented industries."[17]

A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913.[18] In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak at a Father's Day celebration[19] and he wanted to make it an officially recognized federal holiday, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized.[20] US President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed throughout the entire nation, but he stopped short at issuing a national proclamation.[19] Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress.[19][21] In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a Father's Day proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents".[21] In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day.[20] Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.[19][20][21][22]

In addition to Father's Day, International Men's Day is celebrated in many countries on November 19 in honor of men and boys who are not fathers.