Father’s Day Took Years to Catch On. Here’s Why

American fatherhood has been redefined in the years since Father’s Day took shape, but the idea behind the holiday stays the same.

Father’s Day was proposed around the same time as Mother’s Day, in the early 20th century, when a woman named Sonora Louise Smart Dodd wanted to honor her father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran who was left to raise six children after his wife died during childbirth.