When did Father’s Day start?
As it is well known globally, Father’s Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June each year. However has the thought ever crossed your mind, “where and when did all this start?”
The origin of Father’s Day is not clear. Some say that it began with a church service in West Virginia in 1908. Others say the first Father’s Day ceremony was held in Vancouver, Washington. But the most popular origin story is that, the idea for creating a day for children to honor their fathers began in Spokane, Washington.
A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of the idea for Father’s Day while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in the year 1909. Having been raised with five others by her father, William Jackson Smart, after her mother died, Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her.
It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of Sonora, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora’s father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father’s Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.
The president of the Chicago branch of the Lions’ Club, Harry Meek, is also said to have celebrated the first Father’s Day with his organization in 1915; and the day that they chose was the third Sunday in June, the closest date to Meek’s own birthday!
After years of these unofficial celebrations being held, States and organizations began lobbying Congress to declare an annual Father’s Day.
In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson approved of this idea, but it was not until 1924 when President Calvin Coolidge made it a national event to “establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations”.
Since then, fathers had been honored and recognised by their families throughout the country on the third Sunday in June. Above all of this we at Teenage are still not sure where this day’s celebration originated. But we are thankful someone did thought of having a world wide celebration of this nature declared.