Happy Father's Day! Then and Now

The idea for Father's Day came to Sonora Dodd of Spokane, WA, while she listened to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909. Dodd wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart, a widowed Civil War veteran and farmer who raised six children after their mother died during childbirth. Dodd petitioned the city, asking for her father's birthday, June 5, to be set aside as a special day, but the mayor settled upon the third Sunday in June, the month of Smart's birth.

The first Father's Day was celebrated in Spokane in 1910, and in 1916 then-President Woodrow Wilson attended a Father's Day celebration there. Fifty years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a proclamation declaring the third Sunday in June as Father's Day, and in 1972 President Richard Nixon signed a public law that made it a permanent day of national observance.

Facts and Figures

(Source: U.S. Census Bureau)

70.1 million – Estimated number of fathers across the nation

1.8 million – Number of single fathers in 2010 (about 15 percent of single parents are men)

154,000 – Estimated number of stay-at-home dads in 2010. These Mr. Moms with children younger than 15 have been out of the workforce for at least a year so they can care for the family while their wives work outside the home. 

$2.8 billion – Amount of child support received by custodial fathers in 2007; they were due $4.3 billion. (Custodial mothers received $18.6 billion of $29.8 billion owed in child support in the same year.)

8,111 – Number of men's clothing stores around the country (if you're still looking for a gift)

66 percent – Percentage of children younger than 6 who were praised three or more times a day by their fathers