Father's Day

In 1972, fifty-eight years after Mother's Day was established as an official American holiday, Father's Day was officially proclaimed by the federal government as an observance to be held annually on the third Sunday of June. This lag suggests the cultural ambivalence about Father's Day, from its first appearance in 1910 as a religious call to “honor thy father” to its current status today as a successful commercial enterprise that celebrates the contributions of fathers to family life.

The inspiration for the holiday is traditionally traced to Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, who, during a Mother's Day sermon in 1909, reflected on her father's assumption of child rearing after the death of her mother. Since the mid–nineteenth century, rising expectations for male breadwinning in an industrializing society had relegated fathers to a secondary role in the home. Dodd sought to remind fathers of the religious importance of their domestic duties as well. The mayor of Spokane and the governor of Washington proclaimed the first Father's Day on July 19, 1910.

Father's Day received active support in its early years by Harry C. Meek, President of the Lions Club of Chicago. President Woodrow Wilson recognized Spokane's celebration in [Page 166]1916 by pressing a button in Washington, D.C., that telegraphically unfurled a flag in the state of Washington, and in 1924 President Calvin Coolidge urged its observance at the state level. But Father's Day was not accorded full federal recognition because of broader popular disdain for its establishment. Many men scoffed at the holiday's sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more products—often paid for by the father himself. Still, support for fathers was expressed in the 1920s and 1930s during Mother's Day counter-rallies held in New York City's Central Park aimed at renaming it Parents' Day.

During the Depression, Father's Day was seized upon by the New York business community as a means of promoting sales by creating a “second Christmas” halfway through the year. Separate campaigns in the tobacco, neckware, and shirt industries (“Give Dad Something to Wear”) were coordinated when businessmen founded the Father's Day Council in 1935. The advocacy of its first leader, advertiser Alvan Austin, combined with honors bestowed upon fathers defending the “home” during World War II, contributed to the holiday's increasing popularity.

Increasing pressures on fathers to assume more responsibility for homemaking in the 1950s did not extend to the formal recognition of Father's Day. It was only after the Sexual Revolution and the establishment of no-fault divorce in the 1960s challenged the prominence and permanence of the father's role in the home that Congress officially authorized a permanent observance in 1972. By that time the Father's Day Council estimated associated retail sales to be worth more than one billion dollars each year. Father's Day is now the fifth most popular occasion for sending greeting cards, representative gifts associated with the holiday—from ties to garden tools—symbolize the continuing tensions between labor and leisure in men's lives.

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