Father's Day History

Each June, families gather to celebrate Dad and the special men in their lives. However, Father's Day is a relatively recent holiday. In 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd was listening to a Mother's Day sermon and thought that it would be appropriate to have a similar event to honor fathers. Having been raised primarily by her father, Dodd held a celebration in June (her dad's birthday) in her hometown of Spokane, Washington in 1910 to show her father how much she cared about him. An official Father's Day was still a long time coming. It wasn't until 16 years later that a National Father's Day committee was formed. In 1956, a joint resolution of Congress recognized Father's Day. The holiday became a permanent national observance under President Richard Nixon in 1972 every third Sunday in June.