In May of 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, sat in church listening to a Mother's Day sermon. She decided she wanted to designate a day for her father, William Jackson Smart. Dodd's mother had died in childbirth, and Dodd's father, a Civil War veteran, had taken the responsibility of singlehandedly raising the newborn and his other five children.
The following year, Dodd wanted to celebrate Father's Day on June 5th, her father's birthday, and petitioned for the holiday to be recognized in her city. Needing more time to arrange the festivities, Spokane’s mayor pushed the date back by two weeks, and the first Father's Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910.
While Congress was quick to officially declare the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day in 1914, after it was first celebrated on May 10, 1908, it took much longer for Father's Day to be legally recognized. But thanks to Dodd's celebration, Father's Day steadily gained popularity.
In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge said he supported it, in order to establish closer relationships between fathers and their children. President Lyndon Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers in 1966, but it wasn't until 1972 that President Richard Nixon signed the public law that made it a permanent holiday. Since then, Father’s Day has become a time to recognize the many different father figures in our lives.