| Father's Day | |
|---|---|
| Observed by | United States |
| Type | US Culture |
| Significance | Honors fathers and fatherhood |
| Date | Third Sunday in June |
| 2025 date | June 15 (2025-06-15) |
| 2026 date | June 21 (2026-06-21) |
| 2027 date | June 20 (2027-06-20) |
| 2028 date | June 18 (2028-06-18) |
| Frequency | Annual |
| Related to | Mother's Day |
Father's Day is an annual holiday honoring people'sfathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society. It was first proposed bySonora Smart Dodd ofSpokane, Washington, in 1909.[1] It is currently celebrated in the United States annually on the third Sunday in June.[2]
Father's Day was inaugurated in the United States in the early 20th century to complementMother's Day in celebrating fathers, fathering, and fatherhood.
Father's Day was founded inSpokane,Washington, at theYMCA in 1910 bySonora Smart Dodd, who was born inArkansas.[3] Its first celebration was in the Spokane YMCA on June 19, 1910.[3][4] Her father, theCivil War veteran William Jackson Smart, was a single parent who raised his six children there.[3] After hearing a sermon aboutAnna Jarvis' Mother's Day at Central Methodist Episcopal Church in 1909, she told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday honoring them.[3][5] Although she initially suggested June 5, her father's birthday, the pastors of the Spokane Ministerial Alliance did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June.[6][7]
It did not have much success initially. In the 1920s, Dodd stopped promoting the celebration because she was studying at theArt Institute of Chicago, and it faded into relative obscurity, even in Spokane.[8] In the 1930s, Dodd returned to Spokane and started promoting the celebration again, raising its awareness at a national level.[9] 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 presents to fathers.[10] 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.[11] Americans resisted the holiday at first, perceiving it as justan attempt by merchants to replicate the commercial success of Mother's Day, and newspapers frequently featured cynical and sarcastic attacks and jokes.[12] But the trade groups did not give up: they kept promoting it and even incorporated the jokes into their adverts, and they eventually succeeded.[13] By the mid-1980s, the Father's Council wrote that "(...) [Father's Day] has become a Second Christmas for all the men's gift-oriented industries."[14]
A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913.[15] In 1916, PresidentWoodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak at a Father's Day celebration[16] and wanted to make it official, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized.[17] US PresidentCalvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed by the nation but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation.[16] Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress.[16][18] In 1957, Maine SenatorMargaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents".[18] In 1966, PresidentLyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day.[17] Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when PresidentRichard Nixon signed it into law on April 24, 1972.[2][16][17][18]
Many other countries celebrate aFather's Day, for example atSaint Joseph's Day or in June.International Men's Day is celebrated in many countries on November 19 for men and boys who are not fathers.
A "Father's Day" service was held on July 5, 1908, inFairmont, West Virginia, in the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as CentralUnited Methodist Church.[6] Grace Golden Clayton was mourning the loss of her father who died on December 6, 1907, when theMonongah mining disaster in nearbyMonongah killed 361 men, 250 of them fathers, leaving around a thousand fatherless children. Clayton suggested to her pastor, Robert Thomas Webb, that he should honor all those fathers.[19][20][21] Clayton chose the Sunday nearest to the birthday of her father, Methodist minister Fletcher Golden.
Clayton's event did not have repercussions outside of Fairmont for several reasons, among them: the city was overwhelmed by other events, the celebration was never promoted outside of the town itself and no proclamation was made in the City Council. Also two events overshadowed this event: the celebration ofIndependence Day July 4, 1908, with 12,000 attendees and several shows including a hot air balloon event, which took over the headlines in the following days, and the death of a 16-year-old girl on July 4. The local church and Council were overwhelmed and they did not even think of promoting the event, and it was not celebrated again for many years. The original sermon was not reproduced in the press, and it was lost. Finally, Clayton was a quiet person, who never promoted the event or even talked to other persons about it.[19][20][21]
Clayton also may have been inspired byAnna Jarvis' crusade to establish Mother's Day; two months prior, Jarvis had held a celebration for her dead mother inGrafton, West Virginia, a town about 15 miles (24 km) away from Fairmont.[citation needed]
In 1911,Jane Addams proposed a citywide Father's Day in Chicago, but she was turned down.[7]
In 1912, there was a Father's Day celebration inVancouver, Washington, suggested by Methodist pastor J. J. Berringer of the Irvingtom Methodist Church. They believed mistakenly that they had been the first to celebrate such a day.[6] They followed a 1911 suggestion by thePortland Oregonian.[7]
Harry C. Meek, member ofLions Clubs International, claimed that he had the first idea for Father's Day in 1915.[6][7] Meek claimed that the third Sunday of June was chosen because it was his birthday (it would have been more natural to choose his father's birthday).[7] The Lions Club has named him "Originator of Father's Day".[6] Meek made many efforts to promote Father's Day and make it an official holiday.[6][7]
In the United States, Dodd used the "Fathers' Day" spelling on her original petition for the holiday,[3] but the spelling "Father's Day" was already used in 1913 when a bill was introduced to the U.S. Congress as the first attempt to establish the holiday,[15] and it was still spelled the same way when its creator was commended in 2008 by theU.S. Congress.[22]
In 1909 in Spokane, Wash., Sonora Smart Dodd listened to a Mother's Day sermon at Central Methodist Episcopal Church. Dodd's own mother had died 11 years earlier, and her father had raised their six children alone. Dodd felt moved to honor her father, and fathers everywhere, with a special day as well. She proposed her idea to local religious leaders, and gained wide acceptance. June 19, 1910, was designated as the first Father's Day, and sermons honoring fathers were presented throughout the city.
(...) a bill providing that "The first Sunday in June in each and every year hereafter be designated as Father's Day (...)"
Ann Jarvis OR Anna Jarvis mother's day.