Like the Fairmont Father’s Day celebration, several other attempts to establish this holiday failed to gain attention. In 1911, three years after the Fairmont event, a Chicago social activist named Jane Addams requested a citywide recognition of Father’s Day. Unfortunately, her request was denied.
A year later in Vancouver, Washington, J. J. Berringer, a local Methodist pastor, held a Father’s Day celebration at the suggestion of an area newspaper. Unaware of the earlier Fairmont event, Berringer believed that his Irvington Methodist Church had held the country’s first Father’s Day event.
Since information was not transmitted as easily in the past as it is today, many people in the early 20th century believed they invented or first celebrated Father’s Day. For example, in 1915, Harry C. Meek claimed that he was the inventor of Father’s Day and decided it should be held on the third Sunday of June, his birthday. Meek spent many years trying to make Father’s Day an official holiday and was named the originator of Father’s Day by the Lions Club International.
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