Is Father's Day a public holiday?

No. It is a recognized national observance, not a federal public holiday, so banks, schools, and offices stay open and it is a normal working day.

Who started Father's Day?

Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, proposed and campaigned for it, and the first celebration was held there on June 19, 1910.

Is Father's Day the same as International Men's Day?

No. Father's Day honors fathers and father figures on the third Sunday in June, while International Men's Day is a separate observance held on November 19.

Why is Father's Day on a different date in some countries?

The United States and dozens of other countries use the third Sunday in June, but Spain, Italy, and Portugal mark it on March 19 for St Joseph's Day, and Australia and New Zealand use the first Sunday in September.

Did Father's Day really begin as a memorial?

The earliest documented service was a 1908 memorial in Fairmont, West Virginia, for fathers killed in a mine disaster, though the lasting holiday traces to Dodd's 1910 Spokane celebration.

Father’s Day

Next celebratedSunday, June 20, 2027

A cultural observance on the third Sunday in June honoring fathers and father figures and their role in family and society.

See how to celebrate

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Last updated February 26, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEThird Sunday in June

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYRelationships

SUBCATEGORYFather

ORIGIN

Individual Initiative

FOUNDING ENTITY

Sonora Smart Dodd

FIRST OBSERVED

1910

“The first Father's Day was held in Spokane on June 19, 1910; permanence came only with a 1972 act of Congress.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

One daughter's idea, sixty-two years to a law.

Sonora Smart Dodd proposed Father's Day in Spokane, Washington, to honor her widowed father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, and the first celebration was held there on June 19, 1910. After decades of resistance, Congress made it permanent in a 1972 law signed by President Richard Nixon.

Read the Britannica historyvia Encyclopaedia Britannica

INTRO

The holiday America spent 62 years refusing to make official

Americans now spend a record $24 billion on Father's Day. For a holiday this lucrative, it had a strangely hostile start.

The men it was meant to honor wanted no part of it. They mocked the day as a sentimental ploy to sell them neckties and pipes, a gift, as one common jab went, often paid for by the father himself. Congress shared the suspicion and stalled for decades.

So the day that fills card racks every June took 62 years to win permanent federal recognition. It went from a single church service to the law of the land only in 1972.

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ORIGINS

Father’s Day history

INTRODUCTION

The first Father's Day in America was not a celebration. It was a funeral in everything but name.

In December 1907, an explosion tore through two coal mines in Monongah, West Virginia. The official count put the dead at 362 men and boys, the deadliest mining disaster in the nation's history. It left more than a thousand children without a father.

CHAPTER 01

A grief service in Fairmont

The following summer, a churchgoer named Grace Golden Clayton asked her pastor in nearby Fairmont to hold a service for the lost fathers. On July 5, 1908, that congregation became the earliest documented Father's Day observance. It was a one-time memorial. Clayton never pushed to repeat it, and the date fell awkwardly the day after the Fourth of July, so the idea faded almost as fast as it appeared.

CHAPTER 02

The daughter who would not let it drop

The version that stuck came from a woman who simply refused to give up. Sitting in a Spokane church in 1909, listening to a Mother's Day sermon, Sonora Smart Dodd thought her father deserved a day too. William Jackson Smart was a Civil War veteran who had raised six children alone after his wife died.

Dodd took the idea to the Spokane Ministerial Alliance and the local YMCA. They backed her, and the first Spokane Father's Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910. She spent the rest of her life campaigning for it.

CHAPTER 03

Decades of polite resistance

The endorsements came slowly. President Woodrow Wilson marked the day in Spokane in 1916, reportedly using a telegraph signal to unfurl a flag. President Calvin Coolidge urged the states to observe it in 1924, framing it as a way to strengthen the bond between fathers and their children. Neither made it official, and lawmakers kept their distance, wary of being seen to bless a merchants' holiday.

CHAPTER 04

The law, at last

Recognition arrived in two steps. President Lyndon Johnson signed a proclamation in 1966, but it covered that single year only. The day became permanent in 1972, when a joint resolution of Congress and a proclamation from President Nixon finally gave the custom what the document itself called "the weight of law."

TIMELINE

Timeline

Monongah mine disaster

An explosion in two West Virginia coal mines kills an official 362 men and boys, with estimates running higher, the deadliest mining accident in US history.

Fairmont memorial service

Grace Golden Clayton organizes the earliest documented Father's Day, a one-time church memorial for the Monongah dead.

First Spokane celebration

Sonora Smart Dodd's Father's Day is celebrated in Spokane, Washington, the version that would endure.

Coolidge urges the states

President Calvin Coolidge publicly endorses the day and encourages state governments to observe it.

First presidential proclamation

President Lyndon Johnson designates the third Sunday in June, but the proclamation applies only to that year.

Made permanent by law

A joint resolution of Congress and a Nixon proclamation finally give Father's Day permanent federal standing.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love Father's Day

ECONOMY

A single church service grew into one of summer's biggest spending days.

Father's Day spending now sets records, with clothing, special outings, and gift cards leading the way fathers get celebrated. A Sunday that started with a single church service has become one of the biggest consumer moments of the early summer.

RECOGNITION

It put single fathers on the calendar

The day exists because one daughter wanted to honor a widowed father who did the work of two parents. More than a century later, it remains the main national moment that names that kind of caregiving.

CIVICS

Proof that custom can become law

Father's Day spent 62 years as an unofficial observance before Congress made it permanent in 1972. Its slow path shows how a private idea can harden into a recognized national tradition.

BY THE NUMBERS

Father's Day by the Numbers

$24B: Total US Father's Day spending, 2025
$199.38: Average planned spend per person, 2025
76%: US consumers planning to celebrate, 2025
1972: Year it became permanent federal law

GOOD TO KNOW

Father's Day Around the World

United States and United Kingdom

observed on the third Sunday in June, as in roughly 86 countries worldwide

Spain, Italy and Portugal

celebrated on March 19, the Catholic feast of St Joseph

Australia, New Zealand and Fiji

marked on the first Sunday in September

Germany

tied to Ascension Day, where it doubles as a men's outing known as Vatertag

I like everything you have said about motherhood. But somehow, 'father' seems something apart. Do you not think it would be fair and fine to give father a place in the sun?

Sonora Smart Doddfounder of Father's Day, to her pastor in Spokane

to establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations

Calvin CoolidgeUS president, urging the states to observe the day in 1924

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate Father's Day

Cook the meal he never asks for

Make a breakfast or a grill dinner built around what your father actually likes, not what a menu suggests. The point is the effort, not the recipe.

RECORD

Record his story while you can

Sit down and ask a parent or grandparent about their own childhood and choices, and record the conversation. It turns one Sunday into something a family keeps for decades.

HONOR

Honor a father figure, not just a father

The holiday was built around a single parent, so widen it to a stepdad, grandfather, uncle, or mentor who filled that role. A note or a call to that person fits the day's original spirit.

GIVE

Give an experience over an object

Trade the default necktie for a shared outing such as a ballgame, a fishing trip, or a long walk. Special outings are among the most popular Father's Day plans for a reason.

LEARN

Learn where the day came from

Read the story of Sonora Smart Dodd and the 1908 Fairmont memorial that came before her. Knowing the history turns a routine card into a more deliberate gesture.

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