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Who Are History’s Best Dads?

Father’s Day is a pretty good time to talk about the best dads in history, don’t you think?

You may not have heard of every dad on this list, but that doesn’t make them any less important.

Through the love and support they gave their children, these fathers made an impact and shaped the course of history. 

Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)

 

Not only was Charles Darwin one of the world’s most important contributors to science, but he was also one of the world’s best dads. He and his wife Emma had 10 children, though two died as infants.

During a time when well-to-do Victorian-era fathers seldomly interacted with their families because of work and gender roles, Darwin proactively helped nurture and educate his children.

The loss of his 10-year-old daughter Annie was a devastating loss that some historians believe caused Darwin to turn away from religion.

In letters to colleagues and friends, Darwin often lamented that his poor health and family ties prevented him from socializing and attending more scientific conferences.

However, those he regrets didn’t stop him from being a dutiful father and husband.

Rather, he took it as an opportunity to study his children’s’ development, which provided crucial insights for his theories of human development.

Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1821-1878)

 

Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. was a significant influence for Teddy Roosevelt, who frequently praised his father, calling him “the best man I ever knew.”

In his autobiography, the former president wrote, 

“He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness.

He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness. 

As we grew older, he made us understand that the same standard of clean living was demanded for the boys as for the girls; that what was wrong in a woman could not be right in a man. 

With great love and patience, and the most understanding sympathy and consideration, he combined insistence on discipline.

My father worked hard at his business, for he died when he was forty-six, too early to have retired. 

He was interested in every social reform movement, and he did an immense amount of practical charitable work himself.

He was a big, powerful man, with a leonine face, and his heart filled with gentleness for those who needed help or protection, and with the possibility of much wrath against a bully or an oppressor.”

As a child, Teddy Roosevelt was asthmatic and physically weak — a stark contrast from the adult he’s known as today.

His father played an enormous part in this change, encouraging his son to become stronger and more confident through exercise.

Besides being an exceptional father, Theodore, Sr. pioneered many cultural affairs initiatives in New York.

He founded the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Children’s Aid Society, New York Children’s Orthopedic Hospital, and the American Museum of Natural History.

Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)

 

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, had three daughters with his wife Olivia Langdon during their 34-year-long marriage.

Twain had a loving relationship with all three and frequently doted and spoiled them. 

However, he had a close bond with his oldest daughter Susy, who was as passionate about acting and writing as her father.

Susy inspired several of Twain’s creative works, such as Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, where Twain created Joan of Arc based on his daughter as he remembered her as a seventeen-year-old. 

Susy died from spinal meningitis at 24, devastating Twain and causing a deep depression.

His last publication, The Autobiography of Mark Twain, included excerpts from a biography Susy wrote for him at 13. 

Candido Jacuzzi (1903 – 1986)

 

During the 1930s, Candido Jacuzzi and his brothers opened Jacuzzi Brothers, Inc., where they designed submersible agriculture pumps.

However, during the winter of 1942-1943, Jacuzzi’s two-year-old son Ken developed a fever that turned into juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and crippled him from the neck down.

Jacuzzi sold off assets so he could stay home with his son and afford physical therapy.

He also spent copious amounts of money on anything that looked like a cure, from goat’s milk to gold injections.

Of course, none of it worked.

However, doctors discovered that hydrotherapy was an effective treatment for alleviating his son’s pain.

But, unfortunately, the Jacuzzi family lived far away from the closest hospital with this treatment, and the trip was particularly difficult for the young boy. 

So Jacuzzi took a sump pump and remodeled it to make a water jet.

He designed an air-channel that pumped both air and water from the device, then placed it in the bathtub where it formed a whirlpool.

With this makeshift hydrotherapy treatment, Ken could enjoy frequent home treatments and experience less pain.

The boy’s doctors noted that the device was highly effective at circulating the blood and preventing his limbs from atrophying.

Physicians urged Jacuzzi to patent his invention and sell it as a medical device, and in 1966, Jacuzzi created the first commercial hot tub.

Barack Obama (1961 -)

 

Barack Obama has never shied away from his duties as a husband and father, even during his presidency.

After his first election, he gave his daughters a reward of their own:  a pet dog named Bo.

Obama has been open about his love for his daughters, which he has shown through works like Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters, a children’s book with messages to celebrate and inspire his daughters with short biographies of role models like Helen Keller and Georgia O’Keeffe.

In another letter to his daughters published in Parade magazine, he wrote,

“When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me.

But then the two of you came into my world with all your curiosity and mischief and those smiles that never fail to fill my heart and light up my day.

And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn’t seem so important anymore.

I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours.”

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Homebody Abroad

Who do you think the best dad is? Leave a comment and let me know!

There’s more to discover in the Blog. If you like this, you might like to learn about some of history’s most badass moms.

Don’t forget to check out my Art, too!

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Sources

• “Darwin and Fatherhood.” Darwin Correspondence Project, 15 June 2015,https://tinyurl.com/yaqknnyp.
• History.com Staff. “The Best and Worst Dads of All Time.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 17 June 2011, https://tinyurl.com/y7ked6aq.
• Pappas, Stephanie. “Doting Dads: 6 of History’s Finest Fathers.” LiveScience, Purch, 16 June 2012, https://tinyurl.com/yb4ra5pe.
• Sue Steiner . . . Comments, and Sue Steiner. “10 Good Dads Who Changed The World.” Listverse, 16 Sept. 2014, https://tinyurl.com/os9hwpj.