In the USA, Father's Day is celebrated on June 21. Who proposed to celebrate it and why the date was the third Sunday of June – in the material RTVI.US.
Reply to Mother's Day
As Encyclopedia Britannica notes, the harbinger of Father's Day in the United States is considered to be a mass in memory of the male victims who died in a mining accident in the town of Monongah in West Virginia. The service was held in Fairmont on July 5, 1908, at the request of Grace Clayton, the daughter of one of those killed in the incident. In total, 361 miners died as a result of the tragedy, leaving at least 1,000 children without fathers.
The origins of the holiday, however, are directly associated with the personality of another woman – a young resident of Washington state, Sonora Smart Dodd. In May 1909, while listening to a church sermon on Mother's Day, she began to think about injustice. Her father, Civil War veteran William Smart, was widowed and raised six children alone, but there was no holiday in his honor.
Dodd suggested that local priests celebrate Father's Day on June 5 that year—her dad's birthday. The clergy agreed to the idea, but asked for more time to prepare, setting the holiday for the third Sunday in June.
With the support of local churches, community organizations and the Spokane YMCA, the first Father's Day celebration took place on June 19, 1910. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson showed support for the local initiative by remotely (via telegraph) unfurling the U.S. flag at a celebration in Spokane. In subsequent decades, the idea of the holiday spread throughout the country.
Sonora Smart Dodd civilly established Father's Day in 1910, honoring her Civil War veteran single father, William Jackson Smart, who raised six children alone. It became an official US holiday in 1972. pic.twitter.com/nbpgxBSWJl
— Śrī 🪷 (@cinesrimuse) June 21, 2026
Red and white rose
By the 1930s, advertisers and retailers began promoting the event as a commercial holiday, encouraging people to buy gifts and cards. The National Father's Day Promotion Council has promoted greater public acceptance of the holiday through marketing campaigns.
In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed a proclamation observing Father's Day on the third Sunday in June, and in 1972, Richard Nixon made it an annual national holiday on the same date. Father's Day, like Mother's Day, is not a federal holiday in the United States.
Although the event was originally primarily a religious holiday, over time it became secular. Some celebrants follow Dodd's tradition of wearing a red rose on their jacket lapel if the father is alive, or a white rose if he is dead. This day also honors other men, such as grandfathers or uncles who have taken on parental responsibilities.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), Americans give fathers birthday cards, electronics, sporting goods, tools and auto accessories. The main event is a backyard barbecue where steaks or burgers are cooked. Families also often go to baseball games or go fishing and hiking.
In addition, in 2026, many relatives used the opportunity to surprise their fathers by giving them tickets to the World Cup (World Cup) in football, which takes place in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
