In reality, Father’s Day would not have reached the status that it has today without the efforts of one woman, Sonora Smart Dodd. One of the reasons that Dodd was so passionate about the holiday was that she and her siblings were raised by a single father, William Jackson Smart.
Dodd was inspired to start a holiday for fathers after hearing a sermon at her church about Anna Jarvis’s effort to establish Mother’s Day. After the sermon, Dodd approached her pastor and said she believed fathers deserved their own day of celebration. Her original idea was that the holiday be held on June 5, her father’s birthday.
Instead, to provide more time to prepare sermons for the holiday, Dodd proposed that the Father’s Day event be held on June 19, 1910, the third Sunday of the month. Dodd continued holding these celebrations in Spokane, Washington, for many years until she left to study art in Chicago. She resumed celebrations when she returned to Spokane in the 1930s.
Based on Dodd’s efforts, several politicians attempted to formalize the holiday with little success. U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson designated the celebration of Father’s Day with a presidential proclamation, and Father’s Day was made a national holiday in 1972 by President Richard M. Nixon.
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