Christian origins, record spending: 5 interesting facts about Father’s Day

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, June 18, 2023

‘Parents’ Day’ campaign

Back in the 1920s and 1930s, long before the modern political correctness movement, a campaign was launched to combine Father’s Day and Mother’s Day to create “Parents’ Day.”

Based in New York City and led by radio entertainer and philanthropist Robert Spero, the campaign wanted to combine the two observances so that both parents could be celebrated on the same day.

The cause gained momentum in the 1930s when New York State Assemblyman Julius S. Berg introduced legislation aimed at fusing the two holidays. The idea even had the backing of future president Teddy Roosevelt, according to historians Ralph LaRossa and Jaimie Ann Carboy.

Although Parents’ Day celebrations were held from 1933 to 1939, mainly in New York, by 1940, the annual observance had fizzled out with Spero's retirement and the start of World War II in 1941.

“All signs indicate that the war helped to boost Father’s Day and Mother’s Day as national observances. Americans wanted to thank parents of young soldiers for their sacrifice and recognize fathers who were being shipped overseas,” wrote LaRossa and Carboy in 2008.

“Regardless of whether Spero remained at the helm and regardless of the war, the Parents’ Day campaign probably still would have failed, because of the institutionalized support that Father’s Day and Mother’s Day had by the late 1930s.”