The history of Father's Day goes like, in 1909 ,
Spokane, Washington, Sonora Smart Dodd was listening to a Mother's Day
sermon. The lecture inspired her to have a special day dedicated to her
father, William Jackson Smart, who had brought her up and her siblings
single-handedly after their mother died. She could realize the greatness
of her father and wanted to let him know how deeply she was touched by
his sacrifices, courage, selflessness and love. She held the first
Father's Day celebration on 19th of June 1910, on the birthday of her
father. The idea soon caught on and in 1924, President Calvin Coolidge
supported the idea of a national Father's Day on the petition sent to
him by Dodd on the acceptance of fatherhood. In 1926, a National
Father's Day Committee was formed in New York City.
However, it was thirty years later that a Joint Resolution of Congress
gave recognition to Father's Day. Another 16 years passed before
President Richard Nixon established the third Sunday of June as a
permanent national observance day of Father's Day in 1972 in the honor
of all good fathers that contribute as much to the family as a mother,
in their own ways. Even before Dodd came into the picture, Dr. Robert
Webb of West Virginia is believed to have conducted the first Father's
Day service in 1908 at the Central Church of Fairmont. However, it was
the colossal efforts of Dodd, the devoted daughter of the Civil War
veteran who refused to remarry for the sake of his six children and took
upon himself all the duties, love and care of a mother, that eventually
led it to a national observance.
