Curious Questions: Did a mining disaster lead to the invention of Father’s Day?
This weekend marks Father's Day across the world, prompting Martin Fone to take a look at the origins of this day of celebration. The tale he discovered is not what he expected....
The small town of Monongah in West Virginia has the unenviable distinction of being the site of America’s worst mining disaster. At 10.28 am on Friday, December 6, 1907, an explosion ripped through the Fairmont Coal Company’s No 6 and No 8 mines when a spark or a flame from a miner’s lamp made contact with flammable gas. The cause was never formally established.
Ventilation systems were destroyed, timber supports in the mining tunnels demolished, and despite the best efforts of townsfolk and miners from nearby mines (who led the rescue attempts) almost all those trapped underground were killed. Officially, the death toll was set at 361, although with employment practices and record keeping so lax, the number was probably higher still. Many of the victims were migrants, recently arrived in America; amongst their number 171 Italians and 94 Slavs. 250 of the dead were fathers. The youngest victim was aged just eight.
The task of gaining national — never mind international — recognition for Father’s Day proved anything but straightforward. Whereas Mother’s Day was embraced with enthusiasm, the prevailing view was that men were not as sentimental as women and would be less receptive to gifts and overt expressions of gratitude and affection. Others, more perceptively, saw that a day reserved for fathers would only provide another excuse to feed the maws of rampant commercialism.
Despite Presidents Woodrow Wilson, in 1916, and Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, coming out strongly in favour of Father’s Day, Congress blocked any attempt to make it a national holiday. Pressure for formal recognition built up after the Second World War. As Senator Margaret Smith wrote to Congress in 1957, ‘either we honour both our parents, mother and father, or let us desist from honouring either one. But to single out just one of our two parents and omit the other is the most grievous insult imaginable.’
Congress finally bowed to pressure, passing passed a joint resolution in 1970 authorising the President to designate the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day, which urged the public to observe the day with ‘appropriate ceremonies’ and ‘to offer public and private expressions …to the abiding love and gratitude which they bear for their fathers’. President Nixon signed it into law in 1972.
Why father's day is celebrated on 21st June?
In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.
Is father's day always the 19th?
In 1966, Lyndon Johnson issued a proclamation designating the third Sunday in June to honor fathers. Finally, in 1972, President Richard Nixon signed a law declaring that Father's Day be celebrated annually on the third Sunday in June..
History of father's day
In 1909, while attending a Mother's Day sermon in church, Dodd felt fathers were equally deserving of praise. To honor her own father, a Civil War veteran and widower who raised six children alone, Dodd petitioned for a Father's Day on June 5th (the anniversary of her father's death) in her native Spokane, Wash.