Fatherâs Day is not a Jewish holiday, however we are taught to honor our fathers and mothers. Whether you choose to celebrate or not, Fatherâs Day has a very interesting history. Unlike Motherâs Day which became a holiday in 1914, thanks to President Woodrow Wilson, Fatherâs Day didnât officially become a holiday until 1972.
In 1908, a woman in West Virginia tried to make Fatherâs Day an annual holiday. Then in July, 1910, the governor of Washington proclaimed the nationâs first Fatherâs Day. However, a campaign to celebrate our nationâs fathers did not meet with the same enthusiasm as Motherâs Day. Perhaps because, as one florist explained, âfathers havenât the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.â And retailers didnât see the same potential.
In 1916, President Wilson honored Fatherâs Day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane when he pressed a button in Washington, DC, but he didnât proclaim it a holiday. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Fatherâs Day. However, many men continued to disdain the day. As one historian wrote, âthey scoffed at the holidayâs sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more productsâoften paid for by the father himself.â
During the 1920âs and 1930âs, a movement arose to scrap Motherâs Day and Fatherâs Day altogether in favor of a single holiday, Parentsâ Day. Every year on Motherâs Day, pro-Parentsâ Day groups rallied in Central Park as a public reminder that both parents should be loved and respected together. However, the Depression derailed this effort to combine the holidays. Struggling retailers and advertisers redoubled their efforts to make Fatherâs Day exciting for men, promoting goods such as ties, hats, socks, pipes, golf clubs, other sporting goods, and greeting cards. When World War II began, advertisers wanted Americans to believe that celebrating Fatherâs Day was a way to honor American troops and support the war effort. By the end of the war, Fatherâs Day still wasnât as big a holiday as Motherâs Day.
It wasnât until 1972, in the middle of a hard-fought presidential re-election campaign, that Richard Nixon signed a proclamation making Fatherâs Day a holiday at last.
Today, economists estimate that Americans spend more than $1 billion each year on Fatherâs Day gifts.