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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Father's Day
Observed by	Many countries
Type	Historical
Date	Varies regionally
Related to	Mother's Day, Parents' Day

Father's Day is a day honoring fathers, celebrated on various days in many places around the world. It complements Mother's Day, the celebration honoring mothers.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Commercialization 2 Spelling 3 Dates 4 International history and traditions 4.1 Argentina 4.2 Costa Rica 4.3 Germany 4.4 Roman Catholic tradition 4.5 Taiwan 4.6 Thailand 4.7 United States 5 See also 6 References 6.1 Bibliography 7 Further reading 8 External links

[edit] History

Father's Day is a celebration inaugurated in the early twentieth century to complement Mother's Day in celebrating fatherhood and male parenting, and to honor and commemorate fathers and forefathers. Father's Day is celebrated on a variety of dates worldwide and typically involves gift-giving, and special dinners to fathers and family-oriented activities. In 2008, it was celebrated on June 15 in many countries. It originated in Spokane, Washington.^{[citation needed]} In 2009, it will be celebrated on June 21 in many countries. In a few Catholic countries, it is celebrated on the Feast of St. Joseph

The first observance of Father's Day is believed to have been held in July 5 1908 a church in Fairmont, West Virginia, by Dr. Robert Webb of West Virginia at the Central United Methodist Church of Fairmont.^[1]

Mrs. John B. Dodd of Washington thought independently of the holiday one Sunday in 1909 while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in church,^[2] and she arranged a tribute for her father in June 19, 1910. She was the first to solicit the idea of having an official Father's Day observance.

It took many years to make the holiday official. In spite of support from the YWCA, the YMCA and churches, it ran the risk of disappearing from the calendar.^[3] Where Mother's Day was met with enthusiasm, Father's Day was met with laughter.^[3] The holiday was gathering attention slowly, but the wrong reasons: it was the target of much satire, parody and derision, including jokes from the local newspaper Spokane Review.^[3] Many people saw it as just the first step in filling the calendar with mindless promotions like "Grandparents' Day", "Professional Secretaries' Day", etc. all the way down to "National Clean Your Desk Day".^[3]

A bill was introduced on 1913^[4], US President Calvin Coolidge supported the idea in 1924,^{[citation needed]} a national committee was formed in the 1930s by trade groups in order to legitimate the holiday,^[5]

In addition to Father's Day, International Men's Day is celebrated in many countries, most often on November 19.

[edit] Commercialization

The Associated Men's Wear Retailers formed a National Father's Day Committee in New York City in the 1930's, which was renamed in 1938 to National Council for the Promotion of Father's Day and incorporated several trade groups more.^[5] This council had the goals of legitimating the holiday in the mind of the people and managing the holiday as a commercial event in a more systematic way, in order to boost the sales during the holiday.^[5] This council always had the support of Dodd, who had no problem with the commercialization of the holiday and endorsed several promotions to increase the amount of gifts.^[6] In this aspect she can be considered the opposite of Ann Jarvis, who always opposed actively all commercialization of Mother's Day.^[6]

The merchants recognized the tendency to parodize and satirize the holiday, and used it on their benefit by mocking the holiday on the same advertisements where they promoted the gifts for fathers.^[7] People felt compelled to buy the gifts even although they could see perfectly through the commercial facade, and the custom of giving gifts on that day became progressively accepted.^[7] By 1937 the Father's Day Council calculated that only one father in six had received a present on that day.^[7] In 1980s, the Council proclaimed that they had achieved their goal: the one-day event had become a three-week commercial event, a "second Christmas".^[7] Its executive director explained back in 1949 that, without the coordinated efforts of the Council and of the groups supporting it, the holiday would have disappeared.^[7]

[edit] Spelling

Although normal English punctuation guidelines indicate that the holiday should be spelled "Fathers' Day" (as it is a plural possessive), common usage dictates that the ostensibly singular possessive "Father's Day" is the preferred spelling.

Dodd used the "Mothers' Day" spelling on her original petition for the holiday,^[8] but the spelling "Father's Day" was already used back in 1913 when a bill was introduced to the US Congress as the first attempt to establish the holiday,^[4] and it was still spelled the same way when its creator was commended in 2008 by the U.S. Congress.^[9]

[edit] Dates

The officially recognized date of Father's Day varies from country to country. This section lists some significant examples, in order of date of observance.

Islamic calendar
Occurrence	Dates	Country
13 Rajab	June 18, 2008	Iran[10][11]
Gregorian calendar
Occurrence	Dates	Country
February 23		Russia (Defender of the Fatherland Day)*
March 19		Bolivia Honduras [12]	Italy (Festa del Papà) Liechtenstein	Andorra (Dia del Pare) Portugal (Dia do Pai) Spain (Día del Padre, Dia del Pare, Día do Pai) Macao (Dia do Pai)
May 5		Romania (Ziua Barbatului)
May 8		South Korea (Parents' Day)
Ascension Day	May 1, 2008 May 21, 2009	Germany
First Sunday of June	June 1, 2008 June 7, 2009	Lithuania
June 5 (Constitution Day)		Denmark
Second Sunday of June	June 8, 2008 June 14, 2009	Austria Belgium
Third Sunday of June	June 21, 2009 June 20, 2010 June 19, 2011 June 17, 2012	Argentina [13] Antigua Bahamas Bangladesh Barbados Bulgaria Canada Chile People's Republic of China** Colombia Costa Rica [14]	Cuba [15] Cyprus Czech Republic Ecuador France Ghana Greece Guyana Hong Kong Hungary India	Ireland Jamaica Japan Malaysia Malta Mauritius Myanmar Mexico [16] Netherlands	Pakistan Panama [17] Paraguay Peru [18] Philippines [19] Puerto Rico (15 June 2008 was third Sunday of June) Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	Singapore Slovakia South Africa Sri Lanka Switzerland Trinidad and Tobago Turkey United Kingdom	Ukraine United States Venezuela Zimbabwe
June 17		El Salvador [20] Guatemala [21]
June 21		Syria Lebanon Egypt
June 23		Nicaragua Poland	Uganda
Last Sunday of June	June 29, 2008 June 28, 2009	Haiti [22]
Second Sunday of July	July 13, 2008 July 12, 2009	Uruguay
Last Sunday of July	July 27, 2008 July 26, 2009	Dominican Republic
Second Sunday of August	August 10, 2008 August 9, 2009	Brazil
August 8		Taiwan
First Sunday of September	September 7, 2008 September 6, 2009	Australia New Zealand
Second Sunday of September	September 14, 2008 September 13, 2009	Latvia
New Moon of September	September 29, 2008 September 18, 2009	Nepal
First Sunday of October	October 5, 2008 October 4, 2009	Luxembourg
Second Sunday of November	November 9, 2008 November 8, 2009	Estonia Finland	Norway Sweden Iceland
December 5		Thailand
December 26		Bulgaria

*Officially, as the name suggests, the holiday celebrate people who are serving or were serving the Russian Armed Forces (both men and women). But the congratulations are traditionally, nationally accepted by all fathers, other adult men and male children as well.
**In China (under the title of Republic of China, still under Nationalist rule at the time), Father's Day on August 8 was first held in Shanghai in 1945.

[edit] International history and traditions

[edit] Argentina

Father's Day in Argentina is celebrated on the third Sunday of June, but there have been several attempts to change the date to August 24, to commemorate day in which the "Father of the Nation" José de San Martín became a father. ^[13]

In 1953 the proposal to celebrate Father's Day in all educational establishments on August 24, in honor of José de San Martín, was raised to the General Direction of Schools of Mendoza Province. The day was celebrated for the first time in 1958, on the third Sunday of June, but it was not included in the school calendars due to pressure from several groups. ^[23]

Schools in the Mendoza Province continued to celebrate Father's Day on August 24, and, in 1982, the Provincial Governor passed a law declaring Father's Day in the province to be celebrated on that day. ^[23]

In 2004, several proposals to change the date to August 24 were presented to the Argentine Camara de Diputados as a single, unified project. ^[23] After being approved, the project was passed to the Senate of Argentina for final review and approval. The Senate changed the proposed new date to the third Sunday of August, and scheduled the project for approval. However, the project was never addressed during the Senate's planned session, which caused its ultimate failure. ^[24]

[edit] Costa Rica

In Costa Rica the Unidad Social Cristiana party presented a bill to change the celebration of the day from the third Sunday of June to 19th March, the day of Saint Joseph.^[25] That was in order to give tribute to this saint, who gave name to the capital of the country San José, Costa Rica, and so family heads will be able to celebrate the Father's Day at the same time as the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker.^[14] The official date is still third Sunday of June.

[edit] Germany

In Germany there is no such thing as Father's Day ^[26][27] as celebrated in other parts of the world. There are two terms and/or events of an older origin that while similar in name, have entirely different meanings. Vatertag, is always celebrated on Ascension Day (the Thursday forty days after Easter), which is a federal holiday. Regionally, it is also called men's day, Männertag, or gentlemen's day, Herrentag. It is tradition to do a males-only hiking tour with one or more smaller wagons, Bollerwagen, pulled by manpower. In the wagons are wine or beer (according to region) and traditional regional food, Hausmannskost, which could be Saumagen, Liverwurst, Blutwurst (Blood Sausage), vegetables, eggs, etc.

Some parts of Germany (such as Bavaria and the northern part of Germany) call this particular day "Vatertag", which is the literal equivalent to Father's Day.

[edit] Roman Catholic tradition

In the Roman Catholic tradition, Fathers are celebrated on Saint Joseph's Day, commonly called Feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, though in most countries Father's Day is a secular celebration. ^[28]

[edit] Taiwan

In Taiwan, Father's Day is not an official holiday, but is widely observed on August 8, the eighth day of the eighth month of the year. In Mandarin Chinese, the pronunciation of the number 8 is bā. This pronunciation is very similar to the character "爸" "bà", which means "Papa" or "father". The Taiwanese, therefore, usually call August 8 by its nickname, "Bābā Day" (爸爸節).

[edit] Thailand

In Thailand, Father's Day is set as the birthday of the king. December 5 is the birthday of current king, Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX). Thais celebrate by giving their father or grandfather a Canna flower (Dok put ta ruk sa) which is considered to be a masculine flower. Thai people will wear yellow on this day to show respect for the king. This is because yellow is the Color of the day for Monday, the day on which king Bhumibol Adulyadej was born.

[edit] United States

In the United States, the first modern Father's Day celebration was held on July 5, 1908, in Fairmont, West Virginia^[29][30] or on June 19th of the same year, in the state of Washington^[31]. Today, Father's Day is celebrated on the 3rd Sunday of June.

In West Virginia, it was first celebrated as a church service at Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as Central United Methodist Church. Grace Golden Clayton, who is believed to have suggested the service to the pastor, is believed to have been inspired to celebrate fathers after the deadly mine explosion in nearby Monongah the prior December. This explosion killed 361 men, many of them fathers and recent immigrants to the United States from Italy. Another possible inspiration for the service was Mothers' Day, which had been celebrated for the first time two months prior in Grafton, West Virginia, a town about 15 miles (24 km) away.

Another driving force behind the establishment of the integration of Father's Day was Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd, born in Creston, Washington. Her father, the Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, was a single parent reared his six children in Spokane, Washington. She was inspired by Anna Jarvis's efforts to establish Mother's Day. Although she initially suggested June 5, her father's birthday, she did not provide the organizers with enough time to make arrangements, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June. The first June Father's Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, WA, at the Spokane YMCA.

Unofficial support from such figures as William Jennings Bryan was immediate and widespread. President Woodrow Wilson was personally feted by his family in 1916. President Calvin Coolidge recommended it as a national holiday in 1924. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson made Father's Day a holiday to be celebrated on the third Sunday of June. The holiday was not officially recognized until 1972, during the presidency of Richard Nixon.

In recent years, retailers have adapted to the holiday by promoting greeting cards and male-oriented gifts such as electronics and tools. Schools and other children's programs commonly have activities to make Father's Day gifts.

According to IBISWorld, a publisher of business research, Americans are expected to spend at least $11 billion on gifts for Father's Day in 2008. This is about $7 billion less than the amount spent on Moms for Mother's Day, which is more steeped in traditional gifts, some of which tend to be more expensive than Father's Day gifts. In economic terms, the average per capita spending on Father's Day is expected to be in the range of $27.60 in 2008. ^[32].

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Category:Father's Day

• Mother's Day
• Children's Day

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• LEIGH Eric Schmidt (1997). Princeton University Press. ed. Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays (reprint, illustrated ed.). pp. 275-292. ISBN 0691017212. http://books.google.com/books?id=maF8mTPsJqsC. 

[edit] Further reading

• LAROSSA, Ralph (1997). University of Chicago Press. ed. The Modernization of Fatherhood: A Social and Political History (illustrated ed.). p. 90,170-192. ISBN 0226469042. http://books.google.com/books?id=rkkIKQVu26cC&pg=PA90-IA3&vq=mother's+day&dq=%22Ann+Jarvis%22+OR+%22Anna+Jarvis%22+%22mother's+day%22. 

[edit] External links

• Father's Day at the Open Directory Project
• Proclamations by US Presidents on Father's Day, from George W. Bush and Bill Clinton
• Father's Day Traditions Around the World

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