What does the longest day of the year have to do with celebrating the love of dads?
This year, the two overlap, with the summer solstice and Father’s Day falling on the same day.
“Father’s Day in the United States is anchored to the third Sunday in June, so once every several years the holiday lands on the solstice itself,” the Old Farmer’s Almanac says. “The next time the two share a date is 2037.”
Beyond this year’s overlap with the summer solstice, here’s what else to know about Father’s Day, including its lengthy road to becoming a nationally recognized holiday.
When is Father’s Day?
This year, Father’s Day will be celebrated on Sunday, June 21.
Which came first: Mother’s Day or Father’s Day?
Mother’s Day came before Father’s Day and was officially recognized in 1914, when “President Woodrow Wilson announced the second Sunday in May would become a holiday in honor of ‘that tender, gentle army, the mothers of America,’” according to History.com.
In the early 1990s, men associated the day of tribute with women “and found the idea of a day for men too effeminate to their liking,” the Old Farmer’s Almanac says.
Long road to officially recognizing Father’s Day
“The first known Father’s Day service occurred in Fairmont, West Virginia, on July 5, 1908, after hundreds of men died in the worst mining accident in U.S. history,” according to the Almanac.
Grace Golden Clayton, the daughter of a minister, proposed a day to honor fathers, especially those who had died, the Almanac says. The event, though, did not become an annual tradition, nor was it known widely outside the local community.
Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, inspired by the idea of Mother’s Day, wanted to create a day to recognize fathers, according to the Almanac. Smart Dodd’s own father raised her and her five brothers after her mother died giving birth in 1898.
Within months, Smart Dodd “had convinced the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA to set aside a Sunday in June to celebrate fathers,” the Almanac says. Ministers chose the third Sunday in June, and the first Father’s Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910.
“The widely publicized events in Spokane struck a chord that reached all the way to Washington, D.C., and Sonora’s celebration put the idea on the path to becoming a national holiday,” the Almanac says. “However, the holiday did not catch on right away, perhaps due to the perceived parallels with Mother’s Day.”
Though a bill to create Father’s Day was introduced in Congress in 1913, it did not pass, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.
Nearly 50 years later, President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order in 1966 for Father’s Day to be celebrated on the third Sunday in June, the Almanac says. In 1972, Congress passed an act that made Father’s Day a national holiday.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Why Father’s Day became a national holiday — and when it’s celebrated
Reporting by Daniella Segura, USA TODAY NETWORK / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Daniella Segura, USA TODAY NETWORK | USA TODAY Network
