The Origin of Father's Day

Two events that took place within a few years of each other are the roots of what grew into present-day Father’s Day.

Following the December 1907 explosion at the Fairmont Coal Company mines in Monongah, West Virginia, that took the lives of 362 men, a West Virginia church honored the memory of the deceased fathers with a one-time commemoration in July 1908. This was the first observance explicitly in honor of fathers.

Inspired by a Veteran and Widower

The following year in 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd went to churches, government officials and shop owners in Spokane, Washington, to drum up support for a special day to honor fathers. Dodd, one of six children, had been raised by her widower father, a Civil War veteran. She was passionate about establishing an official day for dads that was equivalent to Mother’s Day, which had been organized in West Virginia the previous year. Notably, there had been precursors to Mother’s Day, from pre-Civil War Mothers’ Day Work Clubs to post-Civil War Mothers’ Friendship Day and Mothers’ Peace Day. Dodd was successful in her plight, and the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day celebration was held on June 19, 1910.

The Great Depression and World War II

During the 1920s and into the early-1930s, a movement was brewing to combine Mother’s Day and Father’s Day into a single holiday known as Parents’ Day. Those in favor of a combined celebration to

Sonora Smart Dodd

love and respect both parents on the same day rallied every year in New York City’s Central Park. Their efforts to combine and decommercialize both holidays were paradoxically derailed by The Great Depression, with efforts redoubled by struggling retailers and advertisers to promote Father’s Day as a second Christmas for men. Neckties, pipes and tobacco, hats, socks, golf clubs and other sporting goods were widely promoted, along with greeting cards.

World War II played an important role in the escalation of Father’s Day, with advertisers using it as an opportunity for families to honor American troops. And while Father’s Day was not yet a federal holiday when the war ended in 1945, it was most certainly a national institution.

Presidents Step In

Over the years, U.S. Presidents made attempts to shed light on theday and to solidify a Father’s Day observance.

President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 unfurled a flag in Spokane via telegraph signals from Washington, D.C., and President Calvin Coolidge urged the observance of Father’s Day by state governments in 1924. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed a proclamation calling for Father’s Day to be celebrated on the third Sunday in June. In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed a proclamation – he did so in the middle of a hard-fought presidential re-election campaign – that made Father’s Day a federal holiday.

Happy Father's Day