Valley City Times-Record

1st Father’s Day Official Holiday Held July 5, 1908

By Ellie Boese treditor@times-online.com

Though there is mention of celebrations honoring fathers going back to 1508 in Southern Europe, the first known Father’s Day service in the United States was held on July 5, 1908. It came in the aftermath of a tragedy: the worst mining accident in United States history. At about 10 a.m. on December 6, an explosion in a coal mine system in Monongah, West Virginia, killed 361 miners. The exact cause of the disaster remains unknown, though it’s likely that the explosion was caused by a spark igniting methane gas in the underground tunnels. In an instant, about 1,000 children were left fatherless, and families were changed forever.

Grace Golden Clayton, who lived in Monongah at the time, decided to organize a ceremony to honor these fathers, sons, uncles and brothers at the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church in Fairmont.

“It was partly the explosion that set me to think how important and loved most fathers

From 1are,” Clayton told a local newspaper. “All those lonely children and the heartbroken wives and mothers, made orphans and widows in a matter of a few minutes. Oh, how sad and frightening to have no father, no husband, to turn to at such a sad time.”

The ceremony was held, but it was overshadowed by July 4th celebrations, which had attracted 12,000 people to Fairmont. In addition, a prominent young woman of the Williams Memorial Church’s congregation had just died of typhoid fever. The Father’s Day ceremony that Clayton worked hard to organize went on as planned, though it was small and didn’t make much of a splash because of unfortunate timing. However, that first Father’s Day ceremony was the foundation for the holiday we know today. The holiday took off nationally two years later, after Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington arranged a service to celebrate her dad, William Jackson Smart, whose birthday was June 5th. Sonora was one of six children, and William, a farmer and Civil War veteran, was a single father. He raised Sonora and her five brothers by himself after his wife died giving birth to their youngest child. Sonora had gotten the idea for a Father’s Day-type celebration after listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909, prompting her to consider a celebration honoring fathers, too. After she suggested the idea to her local clergymen, they selected the third Sunday in June as the date of the ceremony, giving themselves time to prepare their sermons. On June 19th, 1910, the YMCA of Spokane was host to Sonora’s suggested Father’s Day event. Soon, Father’s Day celebrations were being held in other communities, and the first bill seeking to make Father’s Day a permanent national holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913. Though President Woodrow Wilson supported it, the bill didn’t pass. With a Father’s Day holiday viewed as being similar to Mother’s Day — a sentimental, feminine holiday popular with florists — many men in America didn’t jump right on the Father’s Day bandwagon. In addition, the societal norms in family structure meant that the man was the head of the household all day every day, so many found it a rather silly idea to dedicate a holiday to fathers.

While some scoffed at the idea of Father’s Day, many others were in favor of it. In 1916, President Wilson and his family personally observed Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June. Then in 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed a resolution in favor of the holiday, stating that it was an important occasion to help “establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations.”

In the meantime, sentiments began to change in favor of a holiday honoring fathers. There were also two significant economic factors that propelled Father’s Day into the national spotlight.

The first was the Great Depression, during which struggling stores promoted the holiday as an occasion for families to purchase clothing and goods that their fathers needed, and likely wouldn’t buy for themselves. The second economic influence was World War II, when American men were serving on the front lines of battle and the desire in America to support the troops offered another reason to show appreciation for fathers.

As society evolved, the idea of Father’s Day did too. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order, proclaiming the day be celebrated the third Sunday

in June. Father’s Day finally became an official national holiday in 1972, through an act of Congress. The holiday continues to evolve, as the roles of fathers and father

figures, changing understandings and realities of

family structures and relationships become more widely recognized and honored in society.

Have a happy Father’s Day!

FRONT PAGE

en-us

2021-06-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://times-online.pressreader.com/article/281509344141958

Alberta Newspaper Group