Friday, June 17, 2011

Father's Day Only Made Official In 1972

I find the historical 'back story' of many of our national holidays fascinating.  I wrote last year HERE about the history of Mother's Day, which was first celebrated in 1908 in West Virginia.  As it turns out, the first Father's Day was also celebrated in West Virginia in 1908, just a couple of months later and a few towns away.    (That's not believed to be coincidental.) 

I thought it was also interesting that, while Woodrow Wilson made Mother's Day an official national holiday in 1914, Father's Day was not accorded the same status until 1972, when it was formally declared a national holiday by Richard Nixon.  Two earlier attempts to designate it a national holiday were apparently defeated by Congress. (What were the persuasive arguments against it back then, I wonder.)

On a related note, here's a 3-minute music video parody for Father's Day called "It's A Dad's Life" that I thought was pretty funny:

No comments:

Post a Comment