Sadie Hawkins Day is an American folk event and pseudo-holiday originated by Al Capp's classic hillbilly

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

Li'l Abner ''Li'l Abner'' is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. It featured a fictional clan of hillbilly, hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. Written a ...

'' (1934–1978). This inspired real-world Sadie Hawkins events, the premise of which is that women ask men for a date or dancing. "Sadie Hawkins Day" was introduced in the comic strip on November 15, 1937; the storyline ran until the beginning of December. The storyline was revisited the following October/November, and inspired a fad on college campuses. By 1939, ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' reported that 201 colleges in 188 cities held a Sadie Hawkins Day event.

Comic strip

In ''Li'l Abner'', Sadie Hawkins was the daughter of Hekzebiah Hawkins, one of

Dogpatch Dogpatch was the fictional setting of cartoonist Al Capp's classic comic strip ''Li'l Abner'' (1934–1977). ''Li'l Abner'' comic strip The inhabitants of Dogpatch were mostly lazy hillbillies, who usually wanted nothing to do with progress. ...

's earliest settlers and the "homeliest gal in all them hills". She grew frantic waiting for suitors until she reached age 35 and was still a

spinster ''Spinster'' is a term referring to an unmarried woman who is older than what is perceived as the prime age range during which women usually marry. It can also indicate that a woman is considered unlikely to ever marry. The term originally den ...

, and her father was worried about her living at home for the rest of her life. In desperation, he called together all the unmarried men of Dogpatch and declared it "Sadie Hawkins Day". A foot race was decreed with Sadie pursuing the town's eligible bachelors. If Sadie caught a bachelor, he would be forced to marry her. She was specifically interested in a handsome boy named Adam who was already in a courtship with Theresa, whose father was the area's largest potato farmer. Unlike Sadie, Theresa had a number of courtship offers. As the event became a tradition in the comic strip, Capp added more story elements. Each year, the Sadie Hawkins storyline begins with a prophecy by Old Man Mose, who gives Li'l Abner a cryptic clue about the end of the storyline, which always comes true in a roundabout, surprising way. The storyline sometimes also includes the Sadie Hawkins Eve Dance which is held on the previous evening, when the young women wear hob-nailed boots and stomp on their partners' feet, to make the bachelors run slower during the event.

Impact

Inspired by Capp's satiric race in which eligible women chase down terrified bachelors for the purposes of wedlock, the event reverses the cultural norms of men as the romantic pursuers. Arthur Berger says that the day "represents a fertility rite and awakens an awareness of the relationship between the American courtship and more "primitive" rites."

Date

The date for Sadie Hawkins Day most commonly reported is November 13, two days before the first appearance in the comics. The date has on occasion been confused for February 29 (Leap Day), the date for Bachelor's Day according to the original Irish tradition of women being allowed to propose marriage. Al Capp finally set the date for Sadie Hawkins Day as November 26, in his last Li'l Abner daily strip on November 5, 1977.

References

{{Li'l Abner

Comic strip

Impact

Date

See also

References

Further reading