Father's Day
Father's Day was not celebrated in the US, outside Catholic traditions, until the 20th century. As a civic celebration in the US, it was inaugurated in the early 20th century to complement Mother's Day by celebrating fathers and male parenting.
After Anna Jarvis' successful promotion of Mother's Day in Grafton, West Virginia, the first observance of a "Father's Day" was held on July 5, 1908, in Fairmont, West Virginia, in the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as Central United Methodist Church. Grace Golden Clayton was mourning the loss of her father, when in December 1907, the Monongah Mining Disaster in nearby Monongah killed 361 men, 250 of them fathers, leaving around a thousand fatherless children. Clayton suggested that her pastor Robert Thomas Webb honor all those fathers.
Father's Day
In [[New Zealand]], Father's Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of September and it is not a public holiday. Fathers' Day seems to have been first observed at [[St Matthew's, Auckland|St Matthew's Church]], [[Auckland]] on 14 July 1929 and first appeared in commercial advertising the following year. By 1931 other churches had adopted the day. In 1935 much of Australia moved to mark the day at the beginning of September and New Zealand followed, with a [[Wellington]] advert in 1937, a [[Christchurch]] Salvation Army service in 1938 and in Auckland from 1939.