in 1909, she told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday honoring them. [ 3 ] Although she initially suggested June 5, her father's birthday, the pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It did not have much success initially. In the 1920s, Dodd stopped promoting the celebration because she was studying in the Art Institute of Chicago , and it faded into relative obscurity, even in Spokane. [ 5 ] In the 1930s Dodd returned to Spokane and started promoting the celebration again, raising awareness at a national level. [ 6 ] She had the help of those trade groups that would benefit most from the holiday, for example the manufacturers of ties, tobacco pipes, and any traditional present to fathers. [ 7 ] Since 1938 she had the help of the Father's Day Council, founded by the New York Associated Men's Wear Retailers to consolidate and systematize the commercial promotion. [ 8 ] Americans resisted the holiday during a few decades, perceiving it as just an attempt by merchants to replicate the commercial success of Mother's Day, and newspapers frequently featured cynical and sarcastic attacks and jokes. [ 9 ] But the trade groups did not give up: they kept promoting it and even incorporated the jokes into their adverts, and they eventually succeeded. [ 10 ] By the mid-1980s the Father's Council wrote that "(...)