Fathers Day – a brief history
Just another celebration invented to boost the profits of retailers?
Maybe there’s some truth in this idea, but it’s not the full story.
There are some who believe that the celebration, close to the summer solstice, goes back to pagan times, the son being the father of the universe. But there’s no real evidence to back the theory up.
Archeologists have found a fathers day message written on a clay tablet 4,000 years ago at Babylon (modern Iraq).
There is evidence that the Orthodox Coptic Church celebrated fathers on St Josephs day as far back as the fifth century, and that by around the year 1400 the Catholic Church in Europe were also doing so.
But modern fathers day dates back to the early years of the twentieth century in the USA.
In 1908 a woman called Grace Golden Clayton felt that something was needed to celebrate fathers after a catastrophic mining accident in Monongah, West Virginia, in December 1907, which left over one thousand children without a father. It is considered to be the worst mining disaster in American history.
Clayton went to her local church, which agreed to hold the celebration. But it didn’t take off as a major event.
Two years later Sonora Smart Dodd of Washington State is credited with being the real founder of modern fathers day.
Dodds mother had died in childbirth. Her children were brought up by Somora and her father William, who was a veteran of the American Civil War.
Sonora reacted to the celebration of mothers day (newly recognised) at her local Methodist Church by arguing for a similar event for fathers.
She took her idea to the church which agreed to support her, with support from the YMCA. At church services to celebrate fathers, sons and daughters whose fathers were living wore a red rose, and those whose fathers were dead wore a white rose.
The idea spread across America, and by the Second World War had become gradually more commercialised. It was only after the war that the celebration took hold in Britain.
Fathers day is celebrated on different days in different countries (for example in early December in Australia and New Zealand), and in different ways in different countries. In Germany it’s an occasion for an all male booze up!
Even in the Soviet Union a celebration evolved. Men traditionally gave gifts to women on International Women’s Day (and still do). In return women gave gifts to men on Soviet Army Day (23rd February) and usually called “Mens Day”
Fathers Day is celebrated in the UK this year on Sunday June 21st
