FATHERS DAY HISTORY

The history of Father's Day goes like, in 1909 , Spokane, Washington, Sonora Smart Dodd was listening to a Mother's Day sermon. The lecture inspired her to have a special day dedicated to her father, William Jackson Smart, who had brought her up and her siblings single-handedly after their mother died. She could realize the greatness of her father and wanted to let him know how deeply she was touched by his sacrifices, courage, selflessness and love. She held the first Father's Day celebration on 19th of June 1910, on the birthday of her father. The idea soon caught on and in 1924, President Calvin Coolidge supported the idea of a national Father's Day on the petition sent to him by Dodd on the acceptance of fatherhood. In 1926, a National Father's Day Committee was formed in New York City.

However, it was thirty years later that a Joint Resolution of Congress gave recognition to Father's Day. Another 16 years passed before President Richard Nixon established the third Sunday of June as a permanent national observance day of Father's Day in 1972 in the honor of all good fathers that contribute as much to the family as a mother, in their own ways. Even before Dodd came into the picture, Dr. Robert Webb of West Virginia is believed to have conducted the first Father's Day service in 1908 at the Central Church of Fairmont. However, it was the colossal efforts of Dodd, the devoted daughter of the Civil War veteran who refused to remarry for the sake of his six children and took upon himself all the duties, love and care of a mother, that eventually led it to a national observance.

Information was retrived at http://festivals.iloveindia.com/fathers-day/fathers-day-origin.html