Here is the surprising history of Father’s Day
Father’s Day is being celebrated in almost all corners of the globe but it is not known to many that this event has a surprising history.
Every second Sunday of June, mothers and children honored the man who serves as the pillar of the home.
However, this wonderful and happy celebration is far different from what it was before.
Based on the article from Reader’s Digest, the surprising history of Father’s Day dated back to the 1908. It was during the time when a church in West Virginia held a sermon to honor 362 men who were killed in a coal mining explosion in 1907.
That served as the first-ever event that strictly honored the fathers. However, that happened just for once.
In 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd, a woman who grew up with 5 siblings and was raised by a single father, started her endeavor to make the Father’s Day as a national holiday. She believed that fathers deserved to be honored just like mothers.
The Mother’s Day came first as its celebration was traced back in the 1860s and it was declared as a national holiday in 1914.
Dodd was pursuing within a year for Father’s Day to be recognized, her perseverance paid off. Washington, her home state, celebrated its first official Father’s Day on June 19, 1910.
Later on, other states followed the celebration and after a long fight, it was declared as a national holiday in 1972 when President Nixon signed it into law.
60 years passed when the idea to Father’s Day actually became a federal holiday and in those years, many things happened.
There was a national movement in the 1920s and 1930s who aimed to eradicate both the Mother and the Father’s Day. People who pushed this idea wanted to sync the celebration as the “Parents’ Day”.
Some also didn’t like the idea of the celebration because they thought it was meant for commercialism. Others thought that it was intended to quash the idea of manliness, based on the article.
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