Father’s Day is celebrated on March 19, and although we know that in Spain this celebration takes place on this day because it coincides with the day of the death of Saint Joseph, putative father of Jesus Christ, the truth is that the origin real is something else entirely, then What is the true origin of Father’s Day?
In Spain Father’s Day is celebrated since the 1950swhen as a result of a campaign by the Galerias Preciados department store, it was established that every March 19, it was decided to praise parents with gifts (in 1948 there was already a previous celebration with mass, gifts and performances at the teacher’s school Manuela Vicente Ferrero which was the first to celebrate this day), but it was not in our country where this celebration originated.
What is the true origin of Father’s Day?
It seems that the custom of celebrating Father’s Day comes from the United States and it was celebrated for the first time at the beginning of the 20th century, when a young woman decided to dedicate a special day to her father.
In this way, the first Father’s Day, of which there is documented information, seems to have been the July 5, 1909 in Fairmont, West Virginiaat the local Methodist church.
It was Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd who, inspired by the sermon heard in the church during Mother’s Day in 1909, first requested the formalization of the holiday. Mrs. Dodd organized the festivities for the first time on June 19, 1910 in Spokane, Washington. The choice of the month of June was due to the fact that June was the birthday of Mrs. Dodd’s father, William Jackson Smarta Civil War veteran, who had to raise his six children alone.
Other beliefs considered for years that Father’s Day was born as a result of a 1907 mining disaster in Monongah, West Virginia, that killed 361 men, 250 of them fathersand that left more than a thousand children without a father. Grace Golden Clayton, whose father was killed in the tragedy, suggested a memorial service to the pastor of his local Methodist chapel. But it was never really seen as an annual celebration unlike the celebration started by Sonora Smart Dodd.
The Struggle to Make Father’s Day a Holiday
The June 6, 1910, Dodd reached out to the Spokane Ministerial Association and the local Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) with his petition that described the idea of an annual celebration, and received overwhelming support. Spokane held its first Father’s Day celebration on Sunday, June 19, 1910as we have already discussed, with moving speeches from his own pastor and those from other churches in the area.
The The first president of the United States to celebrate it was Woodrow Wilson in June 1916., who opened the Spokane church service by phone from the Oval Office. Wilson liked the idea of a Father’s Day so much that he pushed for it to be a national holiday (he had just made Mother’s Day official in 1915), but members of Congress resisted, fearing that day would take away support for the festive Mother’s Day.
Not being upset, Dodd he made celebrating this day his mission and spoke publicly with parents to enlist their support. But was met with harsh criticism. According to The Spokesman-Review, they laughed at her and said they didn’t want a Father’s Day. “A national fishing day would be better,” they told him.
The effort to formally recognize a day for fathers he encountered more obstacles over the years. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged states to celebrate the day across the country, but refused to issue an official proclamation as a holiday, and in the 1930s there was an effort to combine Mother’s Day and Father’s Day on a single holiday called “Father’s Day”. Even the newly formed “Father’s Day Council,” made up of (and funded by) members of men’s clothing retailers, failed to get the day recognized in 1938, only getting calendar makers to mark the third Sunday of June with illustrations of ties and pipes. Y the general public did not consider that the day proposed for more than two decades had to buy cards or gifts for father
The harsh words of a senator from Maine
US Senator from Maine, Margaret Chase-Smith, had his own thoughts on the matter. When efforts to make Father’s Day a holiday reached another impasse in Congress, Chase-Smith wrote a harsh memorandum in which he declared: “Either we honor our parents, our mother and our father, or we allow ourselves to desist from honoring any of them. But singling out one of our two fathers and omitting the other is the gravest insult imaginable. «.
More than 50 years after Dodd’s initial efforts, Father’s Day was recognized as a public holiday to be celebrated on the third Sunday in June by Executive Order of President Lyndon Johnson in 1966. But it was still not officially recognized as a federal holiday until six years later, in 1972 when, during his re-election campaign, Richard Nixon signed an official proclamation that set father’s day permanently on the third Sunday of June throughout the country.
So when you choose that special gift and card for dad, remember Sonora Smart Dodd and their efforts to get dads the recognition they deserve.
In 1978, Mrs. Dodd died at the age of 96. His grave in Greenwood Cemetery in Spokane reads:
Sonora Smart Dodd
Founder of Father’s Day
1882-1978
Father’s Day in Spain
Despite this origin, Spainas in other Catholic countries, they wanted to match the Father’s day, with the day dedicated to Saint Joseph the putative father of Jesus and the symbol of the father figure in the classic sense of the term, that of a caring and loving father and a devoted husband.
Saint Joseph He is also considered the protector of orphans and, in general, of the weakest and most unfortunate people in society. By virtue of this, in the past, March 19 was an opportunity to do charity work and in time to consider this saint as the image of the father and that Father’s Day is celebrated on this day.
Also, the date of March 19 coincides in the agricultural tradition with the end of the winter season. During that day, in ancient times, crop residues were burned in the squares. During this ritual, hymns to the Saint were sung and San José fritters were eaten. The latter have remained a typical Father’s Day dessert in some countries, such as Italy.
Surely you are also interested in reading: