Father’s Day was first celebrated as a holiday two years after the first Mother’s Day celebration, which took place in 1908 and was created thanks to the dedication of Anna Jarvis, as previously reported by the Deseret News.
Inspired by the idea of a day to honor mothers, Father’s Day was dreamt up and pursued to be put on the calendar, according to the History Channel. The reception to the holiday celebrating fathers, however, was markedly less enthused.
As one florist explained, “Fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.” The idea of celebrating paternal tenderness didn’t quite land the same way and took years to be passed by Congress, per the article.
How Father’s Day began
The first Father’s Day celebration was held just two years after the first officially celebrated Mother’s Day in the United States. Fathers have a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd to thank for the holiday.
After Dodd’s mother died, she was raised with her siblings by a single father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, according to History Channel.
Dodd admired her father’s dedication to raising her and her siblings without a wife to help. She was determined to organize a special day to honor fathers, similar to the holiday dedicated to recognizing mothers.
Dodd shared her mission in the local paper, writing that the purpose of the day is to “instill the same love and reverence for the father as is the mother’s portion,” according to Today.
After spreading her idea through the local papers, churches, the YMCA, and local business and government officials, she found the success she was desiring. Washington celebrated the United States’ first statewide Father’s Day in 1910.
Following the first celebration in 1910, the holiday continued to spread across the country. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson shared his support and respect of fathers by telegraphing signals to “unfurl a flag” in Spokane at a press of a button in Washington, D.C., per History Channel.
Surprisingly, it was men who were not in support of the holiday for fathers. A historian said that some men “scoffed at the holiday’s sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more products — often paid for by the father himself,” per the article.
The Great Depression resulted in retailers and advertising companies to urge the celebration of Father’s Day — the commercialized holiday, involving gifts of neckties, hats and golf clubs, helped their struggling businesses.
In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge showed his support of the holiday by urging state governments to observe the day.
Finally, in 1972, Dodd’s mission was passed by President Richard Nixon, who signed a proclamation making Father’s Day a federal holiday — every third Sunday in June would be celebrated across the country as Father’s Day, per History Channel.
“The President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation calling on the appropriate Government officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on such day, inviting the governments of the States and communities and the people of the United States to observe such day with appropriate ceremonies,” the resolution read, reported by Parade. “And urging our people to offer public and private expressions of such day to the abiding love and gratitude which they bear for their fathers.”