Father’s Day: The History of the Special Day

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NASSAU, BAHAMAS – In just a few days, dads across the world will be celebrated.

Father’s Day is a decades old tradition and we takes a look at how it was brought to life by a daughter who wanted to celebrate the father who and fought in the civil war. 

The Father’s Day we know today is all thanks to Sonora Smart Dodd, an American, who heard a sermon about Mother’s Day in 1909 and told her pastor that fathers should also have a day to be honored.

Dodd’s father, William Jackson smart, was a civil war veteran who raised six children as a single parent after his wife died. 

His daughter initially suggested his birthday, June 5th, as Fathers Day, but pastors said they would need more time to write their sermons. 

So it was decided the celebration would be held the 3rd Sunday in June. Dodd hosted the first Father’s Day celebration in the Spokane YMCA on June 19, 1910.

But it was slow to take off. For years, many called the day an attempt to copy the commercial success of Mother’s Day. 

Even U.S. Congress resisted making it official in 1916, and it wouldn’t become a permanent national holiday until Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.

By the 1980’s the father’s council claimed the celebration had “become a second Christmas for all the men’s gift-oriented industries” in the United States.

Here in The Bahamas, we have our own traditions, like Father’s Day meals made up of stuffed crab and other seafood delicacies.