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What
is the origin of Father's Day?
Sonora Louise Smart Dodd
Just like Mother's Day, Father's Day is celebrated in every part
of the world. In the United
States, Canada and most countries in Asia, Father's Day is the third
Sunday in June.
Although Father's Day is not observed on the same day in some countries
(like Spain
and Belgium where Father's Day falls on March 19th, Sweden on the
second Sunday of
November, and New Zealand on the first Sunday of September), expressing
gratitude
and appreciation for dads with a special day seems to be universal.
Today, Father's Day
is not only a day to honor fathers, but one to show respect for
all father figures. Families
honor grandfathers, stepfathers, uncles and other adult male figures
that are special to them.
Sonora
Louise Smart Dodd, of Spokane, Washington, was 27 when she listened
to a Sunday
sermon about Mother's Day in 1909 and wondered why there was no
corresponding day for fathers.
(Mother's Day observances began in 1908 in West Virginia and Pennsylvania,
according to Hallmark
Cards in Kansas City.) She was just 16 when her own father, Civil
War veteran William Jackson
Smart, was widowed when his wife died in childbirth with their sixth
child. Mr. Smart was left to raise
the newborn and his five other children by himself on a rural farm
in eastern Washington state.
Sonora
Dodd began her campaign after that sermon. She believed that the
nation did not
show enough respect to fathers, citing such popular songs of the
day as "Everybody Works
But Father," she promoted Father's Day out of love for her
father.
"One
group of men conventioneers laughed and said they didn't want a
Father's Day," according
to an article in The Spokesman-Review. "A national fishing
day would be better, they told
her." She persuaded the Spokane Ministerial Association and
local YMCA to pass a resolution
in support of Father's Day, and the first local Father's Day was
observed on June 19, 1910,
in Spokane, Washington. Mrs. Dodd wanted Father's Day to be celebrated
on the first
Sunday in June, her father's birthday. However, the Spokane council
could not
get the resolution through the first reading until the third Sunday
in June.
States
and organizations began lobbying Congress to declare an annual Father's
Day.
In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson approved of this idea, but it
was not until 1924 when
President Calvin Coolidge made it a national event to "establish
more intimate relations
between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the
full measure of their
obligations." In 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential
proclamation
declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day.
Sonora Smart Dodd was honored for her contribution at the World's
Fair in
Spokane in 1974. Mrs. Dodd died in 1978 at age 96.
From
... About.com
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