Sunday is Father’s Day, the annual holiday where Americans celebrate the men who made them. You may love dear old dad, but how much do you actually know about the observance in his honor? Brush up on your Father’s Day background before the big Sunday barbecue.
Father’s Day officially began in 1910 in Spokane, Washington, where 27-year-old Sonora Dodd proposed it as a way to honor the man who raised her when her mom died in childbirth. Dodd was at a church service thinking about how grateful she was for her father when she had the idea for Father’s Day, which would mirror Mother’s Day but be celebrated in June — her dad’s birthday month.
The movement grew for years but didn’t gain national-event status until 1924 under former President Calvin Coolidge. He said it would “establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children” and “impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations,” according to the Library of Congress Wise Guide.
The holiday gained traction during World War II, and in 1966 President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed the third Sunday of June to be Father’s Day. President Richard Nixon made it a federal holiday six years later.
I love that the original intention was to foster intimacy between fathers and their children. I suspect that was not always the case with fathers prior to that believing their main job was to provide for their kids but maybe not so much to nurture. It’s wonderful for all of us that changed!
Thank you for sharing your provocative
thoughts, Debby!