The first official Father’s Day observance took place in Spokane, Washington, on June 19, 1910, driven by a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, who wanted to pay tribute to her father, a Civil War veteran who had raised six children on his own after losing his wife.
Though the holiday was born in 1910, it would be more than six decades before it earned full national standing. Richard Nixon signed it into law as an official U.S. holiday in 1972.
Some historians point to an earlier event as a precursor to Father’s Day: a memorial service held in 1908 in West Virginia honoring the hundreds of fathers killed in a devastating mining disaster the previous year.
Father’s Day is now observed in more than 100 countries, though the date varies widely from one nation to the next based on local customs and religious traditions.
In the United States, the holiday falls on the third Sunday of June, a choice tied to the birth month of Sonora Smart Dodd’s father.
Several predominantly Catholic countries mark Father’s Day on March 19 instead, aligning the observance with the Feast of Saint Joseph, who is venerated in Christian tradition as the earthly stepfather of Jesus.
Germany’s version of the holiday looks quite different from the American one. It is common for groups of men to spend the day on long hikes, hauling wagons stocked with food and drink in a celebration that blends holiday spirit with outdoor festivity.
Australia places Father’s Day in September rather than June, a practical adjustment given that June falls in the middle of the Southern Hemisphere’s winter, while September ushers in spring.
Thailand tied its Father’s Day celebration to the birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, and the color yellow became associated with the occasion because of its connection to the day of the week on which he was born.
Mother’s Day was enshrined as a U.S. national holiday in 1914, but its counterpart for fathers had to wait until 1972, a gap of nearly 60 years between the two related observances.
In its early years, Father’s Day was not taken entirely seriously. Newspaper cartoonists and commentators sometimes ridiculed it as a hollow imitation of Mother’s Day.
Attitudes shifted during World War II, when the desire to honor fathers serving overseas gave the holiday a deeper emotional resonance and broader public appeal.
An older Father’s Day custom involved flowers as a way of signaling whether one’s father was still living: a red rose indicated he was alive, while a white rose signified he had passed away.
The holiday’s commercial momentum built steadily through the 1930s, as retailers promoted gifts like neckties, pipes, wallets, and tools as fitting ways to recognize fathers.