Grandparents Day in the United States became a national observance in 1979, with the first official National Grandparents Day celebrated on the first Sunday after Labor Day that year.

Quick scoop on when it started

  • The idea for a special day to honor grandparents was pushed in the early 1970s by Marian McQuade of West Virginia, who began campaigning in 1970.
  • West Virginia created a state-level Grandparents Day in 1973, making it an officially recognized celebration there before it went national.
  • In 1977, a joint resolution was introduced in the U.S. Senate asking the president to proclaim the first Sunday after Labor Day as National Grandparents Day.
  • On August 3, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed the proclamation establishing National Grandparents Day in the U.S.
  • The first nationally observed Grandparents Day was then held in 1979, on the first Sunday after Labor Day, a pattern that continues each year.

In other words, the campaign for Grandparents Day started around 1970, but the official U.S. National Grandparents Day started as a national observance in 1979, after Carter’s 1978 proclamation.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.