The Mother of Father's Day

This Year Marks the 100th Anniversary of the Holiday

Additional Images
Photo courtesy of the Spokane Regional Convention and Tourism Bureau Sonora Smart Dodd was far ahead of her time, said Pam Scott, communications manager at the Spokane Regional Convention and Tourism Bureau. She was a poet, an accomplished artist, was highly educated and was also the founder of Father's Day.
By Mary Kypreos - June 2010

Unlike Mother's Day, which quickly garnered support and official standing -- all in nine years time -- Father's Day has a more poignant history, as it faced delays and a lackluster reputation of fathers.

    In the end, it took 62 years for Sonora Smart Dodd, the founder of today's modern Father's Day, to witness her concept become an officially recognized holiday. This month marks 100 years since its first, unofficial, celebration.
    In 1909, while listening to a Mother's Day Ceremony at Central United Methodist Church in Spokane, Wash., a young and pregnant Dodd was inspired by the celebration she witnessed but disappointed in its limitations.
"I liked everything you said about motherhood," Dodd told the minister, as quoted by the New York Times in a March 23, 1978 article. "However, don't you think fathers deserve a place in the sun, too?"

Love for a Father

    Dodd insisted on a similar holiday for fathers because of the role her own father played in their family and also due to the reputation of fathers at the time.
    After her mother's death in 1898, William Jackson Smart was the only provider for 16-year-old Dodd and her five younger brothers. In a time when many men in that situation might have given his children to an orphanage or another family member, Smart kept his family together, serving as both a father and mother.
    "His kindness and the sacrifices he made inspired me," Dodd said in a June 17, 1939, New York Sun article. "Besides that, at that time the pendulum of disrespect for fathers had swung too far, I thought. People were singing such songs as 'Father, Dear Father, Come Home With Me Now' and 'Everybody Works But Father.'"
    A year after listening to the Mother's Day sermon, Dodd shared her vision with the Spokane YMCA and the Spokane Ministerial Alliance, said Pam Scott, communications manager at the Spokane Regional Convention and Tourism Bureau. Although she originally wanted Father's Day to fall on her own father's birthday, June 5, the organizers needed more time to prepare. They pushed the celebration back to June 19, 1910 -- the third Sunday in the month.
    "She had an idea that father's needed to be honored as mother's were," Scott said. "She felt like you should go out and buy your father a gift to show your appreciation."
    In the early years of the holiday, Dodd took her own advice to heart and rode in a horse and carriage through the streets delivering cards and flowers and showing recognition to homebound fathers.
    "She wasn't concerned with what specifically [you gave] but that you take the time to do it," Scott said.

Decades of Waiting

    Over the next six decades, Father's Day would become a lasting, yet unofficial, holiday in American homes. Regardless of its status, it would receive recognition from four presidents along the way.
    In 1916, at the request of Senator Clarence Dill, President Woodrow Wilson was the first to acknowledge Father's Day by opening celebrations from his office in Washington, D.C., according to a Spokane tourism bureau press release.
    President Calvin Coolidge recognized the day in 1924 and urged all states to do the same. Still, Father's Day remained federally unrecognized.
    Forty-two years after President Coolidge's recommendation, Father's Day took another step toward national recognition after President Lyndon Johnson signed a proclamation asking for all flags to be flown on government buildings on the third Sunday in June in recognition of Father's Day.
    Although it became official in 1972, actions in 1970 -- after 60 years of dedication on Dodd's part -- would set the wheels of national recognition in motion. On Dec. 28, both houses of the United States Congress passed Joint Resolution 187, urging President Richard Nixon to declare the holiday.
    Two years later, President Nixon took their advice and signed the proclamation, officially recognizing Father's Day as being held on the third Sunday in June of each year.
    Scott said that she has found no record indicating how Dodd reacted to the proclamation, but Scott was not concerned about Dodd feeling unappreciated for her efforts.
"[Dodd] had tons of recognition all along the way, but nothing was permanent until 1972," Scott said.
Dodd passed away on March 22 1978, at age 96.
    In the end, both Dodd and her father would live to see important milestones in Father's Day's history.
    "Father lived to see Father's Day observed throughout the nation," Dodd said, according to a quote in an un-attributed newspaper clipping released by the Spokane tourism bureau. "He saw more than 1,000 boy singers and musicians on the Inland Empire participate in a sacred service on Father's Day in 1916. That service was officially opened in Washington, DC by President Woodrow Wilson..." §