1914
1911
A World War that will continue until 1918 begins in Europe July 28—one month after the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne in Bosnia. Riding in a 1912 Graf und Stift motorcar at Sarajevo, the archduke Franz Ferdinand, 51, and his wife, Sophie, are killed with two Browning revolver shots fired by tubercular high school student Gavrilo Princip, 16, who has been hired by Serbian terrorists to kill the nephew of the emperor Franz Josef (the 3-year-old Black Hand Society is believed to have organized the assassination). Austrian militarists have been spoiling to enter the wars that have embroiled the Balkans since 1912, and they demand that Princip be turned over to them. Gen. Franz Conrad, Graf von Hötzendorf, was recalled to duty as Austrian chief of staff in December 1912 by his late friend and associate the archduke Ferdinand, and he has the support of Vienna-born foreign minister Leopold, Graf von Berchtold, 51, who presents an ultimatum to Serbia July 23. Part German, part French, part Czech, part Slovak, and part Hungarian, von Berchtold married an heiress, became one of the richest men in the country, entered the diplomatic service in 1893, and is best known as a breeder of race horses; the Serbians refuse his ultimatum, insisting that they are a sovereign nation, and Vienna uses the incident at Sarajevo as an excuse to declare war on Serbia. Graf von Berchtold has sent his Fiume-born chief adjutant Alexander Graf von Hoyos, 38, to Berlin with instructions to sound out German sentiment with regard to Vienna's intent to make war. Hoyos has met with Kaiser Wilhelm and others, he reports back that the Germans favor striking sooner rather than later, but Graf von Hötzendorf has mismanaged the mobilization of Austro-Hungarian forces, and his army is ill prepared to fight. Russia mobilizes in response to a plea from Serbia to help, Germany mobilizes in support of Austria, France mobilizes in response to German mobilization, and Britain mobilizes to support France (see Entente Cordiale, 1904) and Russia. A conflict thus begins that will ultimately involve 32 nations.
Socialist leader Jean Jaurès is assassinated at Paris July 31 at age 54 by a young fanatic who believes that Juarès's pacifism has been serving the interests of German imperialists.
The war quickly widens as Germany declares war on Russia August 1 and on France August 3. Berlin proceeds on the assumption that it will take 6 weeks for the Russians to mobilize an army and that France can be defeated in 6 weeks. Kaiser Wilhelm tells his troops, "You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees." German cavalry forces roll over Luxembourg and invade neutral Belgium August 4, flanking French forces intent on recovering Alsace and Lorraine; Britain declares war on Germany, honoring her pledge to support the Belgians, a promise made in an 1831 treaty that the Germans have dismissed as a worthless "scrap of paper." The British arrest 21 of 22 known German agents within hours of the war declaration (see communications [Official Secrets Act], 1911). French forces invade Lorraine, hoping to regain territory lost in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871 but are driven out with heavy losses.
"The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime," says British secretary of state for foreign affairs Sir Edward Grey. Lord Kitchener is home on leave from the Middle East and reluctantly accepts appointment as secretary of state for war; promoted to field marshal, he warns his fellow cabinet members that this will not be a short war and that it will be decided by the last 1 million men that Britain can send into battle. He quickly enlists volunteers on a massive scale and trains them as professional soldiers. Sir John French, 62, is chief of Britain's Imperial General Staff and takes command of the British Expeditionary Force in France. The Royal Navy has been mobilized in July on orders from first lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, who has charged Austrian-born first sea lord Louis Alexander Battenberg, 60, with the task of preparing the fleet. Britain has 49 battleships in service or under construction, the German Navy 29; eldest son of the late Prince Alexander of Hesse but a British subject since 1868, Battenberg married a granddaughter of the late Queen Victoria in 1884 but is forced to resign as first sea lord October 29 because of his German origin (see 1917); naval power will not, however, play a decisive role in the Great War that now begins.
German forces slip past Belgian fortifications at Liège in a night attack, and the Belgians fall back to Brussels.
Montenegro declares war on Austria August 5, Serbia on Germany August 6, Austria on Russia August 6, Montenegro on Germany August 8. Britain and France declare war on Austria August 12, the day "Big Bertha" arrives at Liège from the Krupp cannon works at Essen. Named for Bertha Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, now 28, the 98-ton, 420-millimeter howitzer can fire a three-foot shell one mile, demolishing any fort. Gen. Erich (Friedrich Wilhelm) von Ludendorff, 49, rallies German forces after another general falls, and Liège surrenders August 16. French defensive strategy has ignored the possibility of a German invasion through Belgium and counted on a Russian advance in the East.
Belgian forces fall back on Antwerp and destroy the bridges over the Meuse as the Germans enter Brussels August 20. Burgomaster Adolphe Max, 44, refuses to perform his duties under the authority of the German-appointed governor, demands complete freedom of action, and works to reduce the taxes and requisitions imposed by the Germans. He will be arrested in September and imprisoned in the fortress of Namur before being sent to Germany for the duration.
The Battle of the Frontiers August 14 to August 25 costs 250,000 French lives; news of the staggering loss is censored and will not appear until after the war. The French government moves to Bordeaux, making it difficult for civilian ministers to control army generals.
The Battle of Mons in Belgium August 23 costs the British 1,600 casualties; the Germans sustain about 3,000 casualties and their advance is checked, but only temporarily. Gen. Alexander von Kluck, 68, masses about 140,000 men at Le Cateau August 26 and defeats a 40,000-man British army, taking heavy casualties. The British lose 7,812 men and 38 guns in the largest battle fought by British troops since Waterloo 99 years ago (it will be dwarfed by the horrific battles soon to come) but are even more successful than they were at Mons in stemming von Kluck's advance.
Aircraft engineer Geoffrey de Havilland quits government service in July and becomes chief designer at the Aircraft Manufacturing Co. (Airco) where he will remain through 1918 (see 1910; DH-4 bomber, 1916; transportation,
The Sopwith Camel goes into production for the 2-year-old Royal Flying Corps at the English factory opened 2 years ago by T. O. M. Sopwith (see Trenchard, 1913). Engineer and race-car driver W. O. (Walter Owen) Bentley, 26, has designed a rotary "Merlin" engine whose aluminum pistons provide tremendous torque to power the biplane; its engine, pilot, and guns are all located in the first seven feet of the wooden airframe, giving it great agility in combat, and the Flying Corps will use to fight German air aces until 1918, although the Germans in their Fokkers will be able to reach higher altitudes than the British in their Camels, who will have to use their superior maneuverability to escape attacks from above (see transportation [Bentley's motorcar], 1919).
French passions against "les Boche" eclipse the scandal of March 16, when (Geneviève Josephine) Henriette Caillaux (née Raynouard), 39, walked into the office of Figaro editor Gaston Calmette, 55, at Paris and shot him dead. Her husband, finance minister Joseph Caillaux, nearly 51, is a former premier and one of France's richest men; Calmette had been running articles depicting him as a liar, grafter, blackmailer, thief, and secret ally of the Germans, and had threatened to print private letters that Henriette exchanged with him several years ago when she was married to Leo Claretie, the paper's literary critic (they were divorced in the spring of 1908; she was awarded custody of their daughter, Germaine, now 19; and Caillaux divorced his wife to marry her). Taken to St. Lazare Prison, Mme. Caillaux was asked to explain herself and said she shot Calmette "because there is no more justice in France. There is only the revolver." Her roomy cell was close to the one where Marie-Antoinette awaited trial in 1793, and she was permitted to wear her own clothing and order meals sent in from good restaurants. Caillaux resigned from the cabinet March 17, Henriette's trial began June 20, and a claque hired by her husband hissed or applauded on signals from a man with long black hair seated near the witness box. One witness was a Hungarian named Lipscher, whose mistress, Thérèse Duverger, served as liaison between the German and Austrian spy systems, but Mme. Caillaux won acquittal July 28. She and her husband are riding in an open cab on the Boulevard des Capucines October 22 when a woman cries out, "Voilà, Caillaux, l'espion d'Allemand." A crowd surges toward the carriage, shouting, "A bas Caillaux" and "Mort pour le traitre." M. and Mme. Caillaux board the steamer Perou at Bordeaux November 14 and sail for Venezuela. Some observers claim that Mme. Caillaux has saved France, arguing that her husband was building a French socialist party, and had he remained in the cabinet he might have taken power as head of a commune and let Paris fall to the "Boche."
Japan declares war on Germany August 23 and on Austria August 25. The Japanese produce munitions for Russia and the other Allied powers, they begin to land forces in Shantung for an attack on the German position at Tsingtao, and a British detachment joins them (see 21 demands,
German Marxist Rosa Luxemburg cofounds (with Karl Liebknecht) the Spartacus League (Spartakusbund) and will be in prison for most of the war (see 1919).
The Battle of Tannenberg August 26 to 30 ends in crushing defeat for a large Russian army that has invaded east Prussia under the command of Gen. Aleksandr Vasilievich Samsonov, 55, to take pressure off the French on the Western Front. The German 8th Army's commander, Gen. Max von Prittwitz, has proposed falling back behind the Vistula and abandoning East Prussia to the Russians; he is recalled in disgrace; another Russian army under Gen. Paul Rennenkampf, 60, fails to support Samsonov, the Germans have broken the crude Russian code and take the enemy by surprise, German forces under Gen. Paul von Hindenburg, 66, and Gen. Ludendorff surround the Russians, executing a plan developed by Col. Max Hoffmann, 45, and taking 92,000 prisoners with help from Gen. Hermann von Francois, 48. The Germans capture 300 guns but sustain about 15,000 casualties, Russian casualties total about 28,000 in addition to those taken prisoner; Gen. Samsonov shoots himself after the battle, Gen. Rennenkampf will be executed in 1918.
The Russians rename their 211-year-old capital Petrograd because St. Petersburg sounds German (see Leningrad,
The Battle of Heligoland Bight August 28 results in a victory for the Royal Navy. Admiral David Beatty, 43, is in command of the battle-cruiser fleet that sinks three German cruisers and one destroyer without any loss. Indian-born commodore Roger J. B. Keyes, 41, joined the navy in his teens, served in the Boxer Rebellion, and commands the British submrines. The German submarine U-9 sinks three British cruisers in September to retaliate for the sinking of the three German cruisers, but Lieut. Commander Max Horton, 30, sinks the German battle cruiser Hela in the Heligoland Bight September 13 and 3 weeks later sinks the destoyer S116 off the River Emes estuary.
A British expeditionary force gains a brilliant victory over the invading German Army August 29 at Guise, east of Paris, with support from Gen. Charles (-Louis-Marie) Lanrezac, 62, who has acted on orders from Gen. Joseph (Jacques Césaire) Joffre, also 62, and swung his 5th Army northward to face the Germans as they advanced through Belgium (he had been expecting an advance through Alsace and Lorraine). The first German air raid strikes Paris August 30 as German aircraft drop small explosives on the city. French forces fall back to the Marne, pressed hard by the German 2nd Army under the command of Gen. Karl von Bülow, but Gen. Ferdinand Foch, 62, cables Gen. Joffre, "Mon centre cède, ma droite recule, situation excellente, j'attaque." Foch replaces Lanrezac and the Battle of the Marne September 5 to 10 ends the German advance as Gen. Joseph Galliéni orders the Paris police to requisition all the taxicabs that they can find (they round up 600, Galliéni packs 10 men into each, the taxis carry the soldiers 35 miles to the front, and they then return to Paris, where they are refueled and sent out again). Gen. von Kluck tries to swing his 1st Army around the French position and move on Paris, but French and British troops hold the line, forcing von Kluck to withdraw west of Verdun, but they are unable to dislodge his troops from north of the Aisne (the British are short of ammunition). Kaiser Wilhelm holds Gen. Helmuth von Moltke responsible for the failure to take Paris and appoints his minister of war Gen. Erich (Georg Anton Sebastian) von Falkenhayn, 52, to succeed von Moltke September 14 as the opposing armies settle for a stalemate. Each side has probably sustained at least 500,000 casualties in the first 3 weeks of combat, and much worse is to come (see Second Battle of the Marne,
The Battle of the Masurian Lakes September 6 to 15 brings further defeat to the Russians, this time at the hands of Field Marshal August von Mackensen, 65, and Gen. von Hindenburg, whose 8th Army has 13 divisions (the Russians have 12). The Germans capture 150 guns but suffer about 10,000 casualties; Russian casualties total 45,000, most of them taken prisoner, and the Germans advance to the lower Niemen River. Gen. Yakov Zhilinksky is blamed for the loss and dismissed. Mackensen proceeds to overrun Serbia in October and November.
British troops search the streets of Dublin July 27 to disarm Irish rebels. An Irish Home Rule Law passed by the House of Commons April 7 becomes law September 18, but the demands of war effectively delay its enforcement. Irish-born Gen. Sir Hubert de la Poer Gough, 44, and 57 other British officers threaten to resign rather than take up arms in Ulster against the Irish Unionists of Baron Edward Henry Carson, 60, the Dublin-born member of Parliament for Dublin University who has violently opposed home rule (see 1916).
Romania's Carol I dies of a heart attack at Sinaia October 9 at age 75 after a 48-year reign that has inaugurated the nation's monarchy. His nephew Ferdinand, now 49, becomes king, beginning a 13-year reign that will be dominated by his British-born wife, Marie, now nearly 39.
Ghent falls to the Germans October 11 as they try to reach the Channel ports in a rush to the sea, but while Bruges falls October 14 and Ostend October 15, the Belgians flood the district of the Yser and the German push fails.
The (first) Battle of Ypres October 30 to November 24 pits German troops against French poilus and British Tommies in a final attempt by the Germans to break through the Allied lines and capture the Channel ports. Field Marshal Sir John French and Gen. Joffrey halt the drive but at a heavy cost: British casualties total 58,155, French about 50,000, and the Germans lose about 130,000. Both sides have dug trenches that extend from the English Channel to the Swiss Alps, and the conflict becomes a war of position in which trench warfare will consume huge numbers of soldiers on both sides in the next 4 years; the front line will not shift more than 10 miles.
A Turkish fleet that includes two German cruisers bombards Odessa, Sevastopol, and Theodosia on the Black Sea October 29. Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire November 2, Britain and France follow suit November 5, and Britain proclaims the annexation of Cyprus, occupied by the British since 1878 (see 1923).
British forces occupy the Ottoman port of Basra at the head of the Persian Gulf in November; Whitehall justifies the move by citing Britain's need to protect the oil wells of southern Persia and the Abadan oil refinery, and the British advance 46 miles northward to al-Qurnah in December as they begin an occupation of Mesopotamia (see
Royal Navy submarines under the command of Admiral Beatty intercept a German squadron under Admiral von Hipper in November as it makes a third attempt on English coastal towns, engages the battle cruiser Blücher in the Battle of Dogger Bank, and sinks her.
German Vice-Admiral Maximilian, graf von Spee, 63, surprises a British squadron under Rear Admiral Sir Christopher George Francis Maurice Craddock, 62, off the Chilean coast November 1. German admiral and naval secretary Alfred P. F. von Tirpitz, now 65, has created a formidable High Seas Fleet and defeats the British off Coronel; Craddock loses H.M.S. Monmouth and goes down with his flagship H.M.S. Good Hope; H.M.S. Gloucester escapes. The Battle of the Falkland Islands December 8 ends in victory for a British squadron of battle cruisers under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee, 65, who surprises Graf Spee as he prepares to attack the Falklands while en route home from his triumph over Admiral Craddock. Spee goes down with his flagship D.K.M. Scharnhorst; his two sons and 1,800 other men are also lost, D.K.M. Gneisenau, D.K.M. Leipzig, and D.K.M. Nürnberg are sunk, only D.K.M. Dresden escapes.
Former British statesman Joseph Chamberlain dies at his London home July 2 at age 77; Afghan and Boer War veteran Gen. Frederick Sleigh Roberts, Earl Roberts of Kandahar, Pretoria and Waterford, of pneumonia at Saint Omer, France, November 14 at age 82 while visiting British troops in the field. He retired 10 years ago and is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, London.
Russian forces make Gen. von Mackensen fall back from Warsaw and the Austrians retreat to Kraków. The Battle of Kraków from November 16 to December 2 brings heavy casualties to both sides. New divisions diverted from the Western Front bolster German resistance in early December after Russian troops threaten to surround the Germans following the November battles of Lodz and Lowicz. Lodz falls to the Germans December 6, but the Austro-Hungarian chief of staff and commander in chief Franz Conrad, Graf von Hötzendorf, has been surprised by the rapidity of Russia's mobilization and forced to redirect forces from Serbia to Galicia. Many of his troops have been stranded in logistical chaos, Austrian forces fail to break through the Russian lines before Kraków, and the Russians will remain within 30 miles of the city through the winter. By year's end the Russian peasant army has lost more than 2 million men.
Serbian troops drive out the Austrians in early December after winning the Battle of Kolubara, and on December 15 retake Belgrade, which has been in Austrian hands since December 2.
New Zealand forces occupy Western Samoa, held since 1899 by the Germans.
China's president Yuan Shikai dissolves the National Assembly January 10 and appoints a new body to prepare a constitution that will give him dictatorial powers (see 1913; 21 Demands,
Japan's prime minister Count Gonnohyoe Yamamoto and navy minister Viscount Makoto Saito, 56, resign under pressure; they are held "morally responsible" for having permitted high-ranking navy personnel to accept bribes for placing large orders with Germany's Siemens-Schuckertwerke AG and then with England's Vickers' Sons and Maxim for communications equipment. Several scapegoats go to jail but Yamamoto and Saito are merely retired to the naval reserve. Yamamoto's government has reformed the nation's civil-service system and begun Japanese involvement on the mainland by demanding and receiving railway rights in Manchuria. Former prime minister Shigenobu Okuma is elected to serve in that post once again; now 76, he will head the government until he retires in 1916 (but see
U.S. forces under the command of Gen. Frederick Funston occupy Veracruz April 21 following hostile acts by Mexicans (see 1913). President Wilson sends a fleet to Tampico, President Huerta resigns July 15 under pressure from Coahuila governor Venustiano Carranza, 54, a tall, bearded, bespectacled landowner's son who makes himself provisional president; he opposes U.S. interests, but his constitutionalist Army comes under attack from his erstwhile lieutenant Pancho Villa (see
Argentina's president Roque Sáenz Peña dies in office at his native Buenos Aires August 9 at age 63; former president José Evaristo Uriburu at Buenos Aires October 23 at age 82.
Former Confederate general Simon Bolivar Buckner dies at his Kentucky home January 8 at age 90. He served as governor of his state from 1887 to 1891; former Union Army general Daniel E. Sickles dies at his New York town house on Fifth Avenue May 3 at age 94; first lady Ellen (Louise Axson) Wilson of kidney tuberculosis at Washington, D.C., August 7 right after congressional passage of an alley-clearance bill that she has championed; former U.S. Army chief of staff Adna Romanza Chaffee dies at Los Angeles November 1 at age 72. He served in engagements from the Civil War to China's Boxer Rebellion, in which he commanded the American contingent that relieved the foreign colony at Beijing (Peking). His son and namesake, now 30, is a West Point graduate who has trained with the French Army's cavalry school; Rear Admiral Alfred T. Mahan, U.S. Navy (ret.) dies of a heart attack at Washington, D.C., December 1 at age 74, having insisted that war rather than peace was the normal historical condition of men and seen much of the world adopt the ideas of his 1890 book about the influence of sea power on history.
Northern and southern Nigeria are united.
German colonial forces in Togoland surrender August 26 to an Anglo-French force. Britain and France divide the German African colony between them.
South Africa's Parliament votes to enter the war in support of Britain, but some Afrikaners revolt and the National Party is founded by Afrikaner nationalist and Boer War veteran James (Barry Munnik) Hertzog, now 48, who has opposed British influence in the country since the Treaty of Vereeniging and now opposes participation on Britain's side (see
Britain proclaims a protectorate over Egypt December 18. The khedive Abbas II, now 40, is deposed December 19 after a 22-year reign, martial law is declared, Abbas II succeeded by his uncle Hussein Kamil, 60, who will be nominal khedive until 1917, and Egyptians for the next 4 years will be subjected to conscription, inflation, and restrictions on personal freedom as the British make it clear that they want to make the protectorate into a permanent colony (see 1922).
Suffragists march on the Capitol at Washington June 28 to demand voting rights for U.S. women. The march is staged within hours of the assassination at Sarajevo (see Jeanette Rankin, 1916). Rosika Schwimmer presents President Wilson with a petition representing about 1 million European suffragists.
Former abolitionist Charlotte Forten (Grimké) dies of a cerebral embolism at Washington, D.C., July 23 at age 76.
Crystal Eastman brings together the first meeting of the Woman's Peace Party at New York in November. English suffragist Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence has been invited to speak, having been imprisoned in Holloway Gaol and force fed. She maintains that there is "no life worth living, but a fighting life" and that it is time for women to be angry and act angry, "active, and militant."
Mohandas Gandhi returns to India at age 45 after 21 years of practicing law in South Africa, where he organized a campaign of "passive resistance" to protest his mistreatment by whites for his defense of Asian immigrants (see 1913). Gandhi has read Henry David Thoreau's 1849 essay "Resistance to Civil Government" and attracts wide attention in India by conducting a fast—the first of 14 that he will stage as political demonstrations and that will inaugurate the idea of the political fast (see 1920; religion [Sarah Wright], 1647).
Explorer Sir Ernest H. Shackleton embarks for the Antarctic aboard the ship Endurance August 8 in hopes of becoming the first person to cross the continent (see
Anchorage, Alaska, is founded at the head of Cook Inlet to serve as headquarters of the 538-mile Alaska Railroad that is being built from Seward north to Fairbanks (the road will be completed in 1923).
Former statesman Richard A. Cross, 1st Viscount Cross (of Broughton-in-Furness), dies at Eccle Riggs in his native Lancashire January 8 at age 90, having worked as home secretary to push legislation through Parliament in 1875 that favored trade unions, regulated employment of women and children in textile mills, established a comprehensive sanitary code, and empowered municipalities to clear slums.
Threats of labor troubles in early January lead Henry Ford to offer workers a minimum wage of $5 per day—more than twice the average U.S. wage and more than the average English worker earns in a week. Auto workers balk at the strain of assembly-line methods, and Ford's huge Highland Park, Mich., plant has been plagued with absenteeism and high turnover (it must hire 40,000 workers per year in order to keep 10,000 on the job). Thousands rush to accept his offer, but they find that Ford will pay only $2.60 per day plus a $2.40-per-day bonus to be paid if a worker remains for 1 year. Applicants must not smoke or drink, must learn English (Ford sets up schools for the purpose), become U.S. citizens, and open bank accounts.
Utah police arrest Swedish-born IWW leader Joe Hill, 34, January 13 on charges of having been one of two masked men who gunned down Salt Lake City grocer John Morrison and his son the night of January 10 (see Haywood, 1907). Hill sought medical attention 90 minutes after the murder, telling a physician on the other side of town that he had been shot in an argument over another man's wife, but while Morrison was wounded in a similar attack long before Hill came to work in the Utah copper mines, and his killing has apparently been connected with the earlier attack ("We've got you now," one of the masked men had said), and while no motive can be shown for Hill to have committed the crime when he is brought to trial in June, he is nevertheless convicted. Born Joel Hagglund, Joe Hill called himself Joseph Hilstrom when he came to the United States in 1903. He has written essays, letters, and songs for the Wobbly newspapers Industrial Worker and Solidarity, his songs have included "The Preacher and the Slave," containing the phrase "pie in the sky," and he has had a major influence in furthering the IWW cause (see
The Ludlow massacre April 20 climaxes a struggle by Colorado coal miners who have been on strike for 7 months demanding recognition of their United Mine Workers union (see 1913). They have openly armed themselves, and Gov. Elias Ammons, 53, has sent in state militia armed with machine guns (he owes his position to financial support from John D. Rockefeller Jr.). A battle with the militia near Trinidad ends with at least 24 dead, including five strikers, upwards of four militiamen, two youths, and two women and 11 children who hid in a cellar to escape the flying bullets and were asphyxiated when their tent was set ablaze; militiamen capture union organizer Louis Tikas along with two strikers, beat them savagely, and shoot them. Angry strikers take possession of the Colorado coal fields, destroying company property, and killing Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. guards. President Wilson orders federal troops into the coalfields April 28, and by the time they arrive June 1 at least 70 people have been killed. Rockefeller comes under attack for his anti-labor policies, novelist Upton Sinclair calls him a murderer, pickets demonstrate outside his New York home and office, but the death of his mother prevents him from traveling west, and by late November most of the miners are back at work, having been starved into submission (see
IWW cofounder Daniel De Leon dies at New York May 11 at age 61.
The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America is founded by a dissident majority within the manufacturer-oriented United Garment Workers Union (see 1910). The "rag trade" (wearing apparel) has become the third largest U.S. industry, exceeded only by steel and oil; German and eastern European immigrants dominate the business. Bessie Hillman (née Abramowitz) led the 1910 strike against Hart, Schaffner, and Marx and has married Lithuanian-born labor leader Sidney Hillman, 27, who becomes first president of the new union, started with help from reformers who include Chicago social worker Grace Abbott (see
Merrill Lynch has its beginnings in a New York brokerage firm founded January 6 by former semipro baseball player Charles (Edward) Merrill, 27, who will team up next year with Johns Hopkins graduate Edmund C. Lynch, 28. Merrill will finance chain stores and be among the first to recognize the mass-market potential of "bringing Wall Street to Main Street" by selling stocks and bonds to small investors, providing them with simple, sound, conservative financial advice (see 1941).
Montreal, Toronto, and Madrid stock exchanges close July 28 at news of the outbreak of hostilities, half a dozen other European bourses close July 29, the London exchange closes July 31, and the New York Stock Exchange immediately follows suit (it does not reopen until December 12). Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo, who has married President Wilson's daughter, meets with Wall Street bankers, who are concerned, among other things, that $77 million worth of the city's bonds and notes are in European hands. U.S. investors fear that European governments will repatriate their gold, but the Europeans will actually ship gold to New York's Federal Reserve Bank for safekeeping, and although prices on the New York Stock Exchange plummet following the outbreak of hostilities in Europe, they recover in December when it becomes clear that the war will increase demand for U.S.-made goods.
The 41-year-old S. Jarmulovsky's Bank at 54-58 Canal Street, southwest corner Orchard Street, and another New York bank with large numbers of foreign-born depositors are forced out of business as immigrants try to withdraw funds to send to relatives caught in the European war. The banks are ordered closed August 4 as being "in an unsound an unsatisfactory condition," and thousands lose their savings. Runs on the banks have led to riots; the Jarmulovskys are convicted but receive suspended sentences.
The outbreak of war increases unemployment in New York. Iowa-born social worker Harry Lloyd Hopkins, 24, is appointed executive secretary of the city's Board of Civil Welfare.
The outbreak of war in Europe brings huge orders for steel and armaments to August Thyssen's Mülheim-based Gewerkschaft Deutscher Kaiser, which has grown since 1871 to employ 50,000 workers producing 1 million tons of steel and iron per year in Germany's Ruhr Basin. Founder Thyssen is 72; his 40-year-old son Fritz joined the company in 1898 and plays a leading role in directing its operations (see 1926).
German industrialist Walter Rathenau, 46, persuades the government at Berlin that its war ministry needs a War Raw Materials Department. Rathenau's father, Emil, founded the German Edison Co. in 1883 and went on to organize the Allgemeine-Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) combine, now headed by the younger Rathenau, who will head the department in the war ministry until the spring of next year, securing, conserving, and distributing the raw materials essential to the war effort and maintaining production despite a tightening British naval blockade.
A Federal Trade Commission established by Congress September 26 to police U.S. industry is designed only to prevent unfair competition (see Raladam case, 1931; Wheeler-Lea Act, 1938).
The Clayton Anti-Trust Act adopted by Congress October 15 toughens the federal government's power against combinations in restraint of trade as outlawed by the Sherman Act of 1890. Named for Rep. Henry De Lamar Clayton of Alabama, the new law exempts labor unions (see Celler-Kefauver Amendment, 1950).
"The maxim of the British people is 'business as usual,'" says First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill November 9 in a speech at London. The outbreak of war ends a 77-year period in which unemployment in Britain has averaged just 4.3 percent, the economy has grown at a steady rate of 2.3 percent (it grew fourfold in the 60 years between 1851 and 1911), and inflation has been non-existent, but Britain has lost her technological edge in industry, the costs of defending the empire from colonial uprisings and envious rivals have been enormous, and the war that began in August is bleeding the nation of its financial reserves as well as of its manpower.
Membership in British cooperative societies reaches 3.8 million (see Rochdale, 1844).
Canadian fur trader-railroad financier Donald A. Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, dies at London January 21 at age 93, having served as chairman of the Hudson Bay Company, Bank of Montreal president, and chancellor of McGill University; George W. Vanderbilt of 1895 Biltmore mansion fame dies at Washington, D.C., March 6 at age 52 after an emergency appendectomy; James Ben Ali Haggin dies at his Newport, R.I., summer home September 12 at age 86, leaving an estate of about $15 million—some of it gained through acquiring and irrigating vast expanses of agricultural land in California's Kern County and San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys (his holdings include luxurious homes at San Francisco, New York City, and in Kentucky as well as the one at Newport).
Montana state militia crush a strike by Western Federation of Miners at Butte November 13.
The Federal Reserve Banks established last year by Congress open for business November 16.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 54.58, down from 78.78 at the end of 1913, as concerns about the European war discourage investors.
A new 11-story Lord & Taylor store opens on New York's Fifth Avenue between 37th and 38th streets (see 1826). The emporium will survive into the 21st century.
A new eight-story May Company department store goes up on Cleveland's Public Square as the chain adds the Forest City to its Denver, St. Louis, and Akron locations (see 1892). The May Company will go on to open stores at Baltimore and elsewhere.
Mail-order pioneer Richard W. Sears of Sears, Roebuck dies at Waukesha, Wis., September 28 at age 50. He retired to his farm north of Chicago in 1909.
Britain increases her equity in the 6-year-old Anglo-Persian Co. to protect Royal Navy fuel supplies. Turkish-born Armenian oilman Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, 45, negotiates one of history's largest petroleum deals between Anglo-Persian and Royal Dutch-Shell: pointing out that the shilling may decline in value, Gulbenkian turns down the consortium's offer of a shilling-per-ton royalty on all the oil drilled, obtains as payment for his services a royalty to be paid in actual oil—2.5 percent to come from Anglo-Persian, 2.5 percent from Royal Dutch-Shell, and will receive 5 percent of all the oil produced in the Middle East for the rest of his 86 years (see Iraq,
Petroleum is discovered in Venezuela, whose reserves will make her a major producer (see Lake Maracaibo, 1922; Curaçao refinery,
The U.S. Navy establishes a new oil reserve at Teapot Dome, Wyoming. (see
Electrical engineer Edwin J. Houston dies at Philadelphia March 1 at age 66; incandescent-lamp pioneer Sir Joseph W. Swan at Warllingham, Surrey, May 27 at age 85.
The White Star Line passenger vessel R.M.S. Britannic launched February 26 is a sister ship of the R.M.S. Titanic that went down in 1912 but with modifications designed to make her truly unsinkable (see politics, 1916).
The Hamburg-Amerika Line's S.S. Vaterland that will later become the S.S. Leviathan arrives at New York from Cherbourg May 21 on her maiden voyage to begin a 24-year career on the North Atlantic. Built by Blohm & Voss at Hamburg for the company's general manager Albert Ballin, the 56,282-ton ship is 950 feet in length overall, making her the world's largest; she has four screws and can accommodate 4,000 passengers, 1,134 in crew.
The S.S. Bismarck that will become the S.S. Majestic in 1919 begins a 26-year career on the North Atlantic. The 56,621-ton German passenger liner is 954 feet in length overall and has four screws.
The Canadian Pacific's S.S. Empress of Ireland collides with another ship in the Gulf of St. Lawrence May 29 and sinks with a loss of 1,024 lives.
The Cunard Line's S.S. Aquitania arrives at New York June 15 on her maiden voyage. The 47,000-ton British passenger liner is 901 feet in length overall, accommodates 3,250 passengers, 1,000 in crew, and is double-skinned with an average of 15 feet between her inner and outer shells.
The German government aborts the scheduled sailing of the Hamburg-Amerika Line's S.S. Imperator July 31 after hearing that Russian troops have been mobilized. Hamburg-Amerika has become far and away the world's largest shipping company, controlling 194 ocean liners with a total of 1,307,411 gross tons (North German Lloyd is second), and while older Cunard and White Star liners are slightly faster the ships built for Hamburg-Amerika's Albert Ballin are far more comfortable. The Imperator will be moored to a pier in the Elbe River until 1918, used as a troop transport until August 1919, turned over to the U.S. Shipping Board, and then given to the British (see 1919).
The first Cape Cod Ship Canal opens for limited-draft vessels July 29 to link Buzzards Bay with Cape Cod Bay, Mass. Built in 5 years by August Belmont's Boston, Cape Cod, and New York Canal Co., the canal has a maximum width of 100 feet, enables coastal shipping to avoid the sometimes stormy voyage around the Cape, and will not reach the minimum 25-foot depth required by its contract for nearly 2 years. Several serious accidents related in part to its narrow width, winding channel, and strong tidal currents will soon necessitate one-way traffic, mariners will avoid it, tolls will fail to meet expectations, the company that built it will give it up as a bad investment, the federal government will acquire it, and the canal will be replaced in 1940 by a much wider, deeper, straight-approach, 17.4-mile-long, toll-free waterway.
The Panama Canal opens to traffic August 3 just as Germany declares war on France (see Goethals, 1908). Built in 10 years essentially on French plans at a total cost of some $352 million ($367 million by some accounts) in U.S. money (on top of the $287 million lost by the French in the 1880s), the marvel of engineering uses a system of locks to carry ships 50.7 miles between deep water in the Atlantic and deep water in the Pacific, cutting the distance between the U.S. east and west coasts by 8,000 nautical miles. The enormous gates that close its locks are hollow, permitting them to float and to be powered by 25-horsewpower motors. The canal's construction has required 61 million pounds of dynamite and the excavation of 232.4 million cubic yards of earth by 102 steam shovels, 77 of them made by Bucyrus-Erie Corp.; 5,609 men have died from dynamiting accidents and disease (mostly pneumonia) to complete the colossal project (about 20,000 died from mosquito-borne diseases in the 1880s when the French tried to build it). Workers on the project have been well-fed and well-housed (in electrically-lighted houses and barracks when electricity was rare in the United States), and their children went to good schools. Engineer George W. Goethals will serve as governor of the Canal Zone until January 1917.
The Bryan-Chamorro Treaty signed August 5 gives the United States rights to build a canal across Nicaragua, an option to build a naval base on the Gulf of Fonseca, and a long-term lease on the Corn Islands in the Pacific. Other Central American countries protest the agreement, claiming that it jeopardizes their security, but although the Central American Court of Justice will uphold their claim that ruling will be ignored, the court will cease to exist in March 1918, and the United States will build a lighthouse on the Corn Islands.
Submarine pioneer John P. Holland dies at Newark, N.J., August 12 at age 74, having given up work on submarines to pursue experiments in aviation.
The Houston Ship Canal opens November 10 to give Houston an outlet to Galveston Bay on the Gulf. Built in large part with federal aid, the 51-mile canal is initially 150 feet wide at its widest point, has a maximum depth of 26 feet (it will later be widened to 400 feet and deepened to 40), and makes the Texas city a deep-water port and a major shipping point for U.S. grain. Denton County-born cotton trader Hughroy Cullen, 33, came to Houston with his wife, Lillie (née Cranz), and five children 3 years ago and soon thereafter bought an attractive parcel of land, owned by his father-in-law, that fronted on the channel then under construction. Real estate operator Jesse H. Jones has tried to divert the course of the waterway to benefit his own interests, but Cullen has mounted a successful effort to defeat Jones and played a major role in raising the city's share of the money needed to complete the project (see energy, 1917).
The Swedish American Line has its beginnings in the shipping company Redriaktiebolaget Sverige-Nordamerika organized at Göteborg December 4 by ship owner Dan Broström. He will be killed in an automobile accident in July 1924, the company will be renamed Svenska Amerika Linen in 1925, and it will continue operations for another 50 years, providing passenger service to various parts of the world (see
Orville Wright buys up all the outstanding stock in the Wright Co. except the shares owned by publisher Robert J. Collier, who suffers a stroke and gives up control of Collier's magazine. Wright will sell the company with Collier's consent in October of next year to an eastern syndicate.
Kansas City's Union Station opens October 30. Chicago architect Jarvis Hunt has designed the Beaux-Arts building, a structure by some accounts second in size only to New York's Grand Central Terminal.
Railroad trackage in India reaches 35,000 miles, up from 25,000 in 1900.
U.S. auto production reaches 543,679, with Model T Fords accounting for 240,700 of the total. The country has roughly 1 million motorcars but fewer than 100,000 trucks, most of them delivery vans (see
A large Dodge Brothers factory goes up at Hamtramck, Mich., where Horace and John Dodge pioneer in making all-steel-bodied motorcars and achieve immediate success (see 1913). Both brothers will die in 1920.
The Stutz Bearcat is introduced with a design patterned on the White Squadron racing cars that won victories last year. Stutz also produces family cars while the Bearcat provides lively competition for the Mercer made at Trenton, N.J. (see 1913; 1928)
Greyhound Bus has its beginnings in the Mesabi Transportation Co. founded at Hibbing, Minnesota, by Swedish-born diamond-drill operator Carl Eric Wickman, 30, who had opened a Hupmobile and Goodyear Tire agency but was unable to sell the Hupmobile. He runs the car on a regular schedule across the range to nearby Alice, charging iron miners 15¢ one way, 25¢ roundtrip (local taxis charge upwards of $1.50 each way). Wickman takes in a partner, is soon building his own bodies and mounting them on truck chassis, and by 1918 will have 18 buses operating in northern Minnesota with annual earnings of $40,000 (see 1922).
Cleveland rigs up the world's first red-green electric traffic light August 5 at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street (see
Gulf Oil distributes the first U.S. automobile maps (see Gulf, 1901). The 10,000 maps show roads and highways in Allegheny County, Pa., other oil companies soon follow Gulf's lead, and maps distributed free by service stations will encourage automobile travel (and gasoline consumption).
Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. (3M) introduces an abrasive cloth made with aluminum oxide (see 1910). Automotive and machine-tool companies find 3M's new branded Three-M-ite much better than natural mineral emery for cutting metal, and when 3M plant superintendent Orson Hull accidentally draws a sheet of the abrasive cloth over the sharp corner of an iron bar he will break down its adhesive backing and make the sheet even more flexible, enabling production workers to reach heretofore inaccessible areas on car parts (see tape, 1923).
Sulfur-mining process inventor Herman Frasch dies at Paris May 1 at age 62; inventor Margaret E. Knight of pulmonary congestion and gallstones at Framingham, Mass., October October 12 at age 76, leaving an estate of less than $300; aluminum pioneer Charles Martin Hall dies at Daytona Beach, Fla., December 27 at age 61. Never having married, he leaves one-third of his $15 million estate to his alma mater Oberlin.
Physicist Henry G. F. Moseley publishes a paper in which he concludes correctly that there are only 92 elements up to and including uranium and 14 rare-earth elements (see 1913). He errs slightly by saying there are only three unknown elements between aluminum and gold (there are actually four).
Biologist August Weismann dies at Freiburg November 5 at age 80. A fervent patriot, he renounced his British honors and awards at the outbreak of war; physicist Johann W. Hittorf dies at Münster November 28 at age 90, having pioneered in electrochemical research.
The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act signed into law by President Wilson May 2 brings cocaine, heroin, and morphine under federal control (see Sherley Amendment,
The hookworm control program started in the South by the Rockefeller Foundation 5 years ago reaches its peak of activity, but in many areas barefoot hookworm victims are reinfected soon after treatment.
Bacteriologist Sir Almroth E. Wright persuades Lord Kitchener to issue an order requiring that all British troops sent overseas be given anti-typhoid inoculations. Wright was appalled by the losses to typhoid fever in the Boer War and will be credited with saving at least 120,000 lives.
Pope Pius X dies at Rome August 20 at age 79 after an 11-year reign in which he has resisted modernism, praised the liberalism of the U.S. government, and deplored the outbreak of war in Europe. He is succeeded by Giacomo Cardinal della Chiesa, 59, who will reign until his death in 1922 as Benedict XV.
The General Council of the Assemblies of God holds its first meeting, basing its theology on Pentecostal teachings by the late William H. Durham (see
New York City has only 38 more public schools than in 1899 despite an increase of more than 300,000 in enrollment. The overcrowded schools turn away 60,000 to 75,000 children each year for lack of space.
The teletype machine introduced by German-born U.S. inventor Edward E. Kleinschmidt, 38, speeds communications. He will merge with his only competitor in 1928 to create a company that will become Teletype Corp., and American Telephone & Telegraph Co. will buy it for $30 million in 1930.
The Sunday Post begins publication at Glasgow and gains a readership that will grow until it reaches close to 80 percent of everyone in Scotland over age 15.
The British recruitment poster "I Want You" is based on a drawing of Lord Kitchener by Northampton-born Punch cartoonist Alfred Leete, 32, that appeared on the cover of the weekly London Opinion in September. War cartoons featuring the character "Old Bill" begin appearing in British periodicals. They are drawn by Indian-born British soldier (Charles) Bruce Bairnsfather, 26.
The New Republic begins publication at New York. Author Herbert D. Croly has founded the weekly "journal of opinion" that will compete with the Nation founded in 1865. Now 45, Croly's 1909 book The Promise of American Life influenced the thinking of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
The Smart Set begins publication at New York under the direction of Baltimore editor-pundit H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken, 33, and Fort Wayne, Ind.-born New York Herald drama critic George Jean Nathan, 32 (see American Mercury,
The Day begins publication at New York to compete with the Forward founded in 1897. The new Yiddish-language newspaper incorporates a section in English.
Publisher Cyrus H. K. Curtis acquires the Philadelphia Evening Ledger and will go on to buy the morning Philadelphia Press and The North American (see 1913;
U.S. newspapers, magazines, advertisers, and advertising agencies set up the Audit Bureau of Circulation to produce accurate data (see Rowell, 1869).
Abitibi Power and Paper Co. Ltd. produces its first pulp for newsprint August 4 at a mill on the 15-foot Iroquois Falls of the Abitibi River in Ontario. Entrepreneur Frank H. (Harris) Anson, now 75, grubstaked two university students 5 years ago with $1,000 to prospect for gold. They returned a year later with no gold but with reports of abundant timber plus a good site for a paper mill, and Anson acquired 1 million acres of land; output of newsprint from his sulphite-process mill totals 470,000 tons in its first year, and it will grow to be the largest mill of its kind in North America (see 1923).
Nonfiction: Quixote's Meditations (Meditaciones del Quijote) by José Ortega y Gasset; A Preface to Politics by New York writer Walter Lippmann, 25; Progressive Democracy by Herbert D. Croly.
Writer-governess Anna Leonowens dies at Montreal January 19 at age 79; anthropologist-archaeologist Adolph F. A. Bandelier at Seville, Spain, March 18 at age 73 while engaged in research for the Carnegie Institution; philosopher-logician-mathematician Charles S. Peirce dies at Milford, Pa., April 19 at age 74; journalist-author-reformer Jacob Riis at Barre, Mass., May 26 at age 65.
Fiction: Dubliners (stories) by émigré Irish author James Joyce, 32, who has had trouble getting published in Ireland and ekes out a living as an English teacher at Trieste; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce; Lafcadio's Adventures and The Vatican Swindle (Les Caves du Vatican) by André Gide; Mist (Niebla) by Miguel de Unamuno; "Helbling's Story" (story) by Robert Walser; The Titan by Theodore Dreiser; Tender Buttons: Objects Food Rooms by Gertrude Stein; A Springtime Case (Otsuyagorishi) by Junichiro Tanizaki; The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death by Hugh Walpole; Sinister Street (two volumes) by Compton Mackenzie; Beasts and Super-Beasts by Saki (H. H. Munro); The Prince of Graustark by George Barr McCutcheon; Mariflor (La esfinge Maragata) by Concha Espina de Serna; The Fault of Others (Colpe Altrui) by Grazia Deledda; Recaptured (L'Entrave) by Colette; The Wisdom of Father Brown (short stories) and The Perishing of the Pendragons (stories) by G. K. Chesterton; Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, now 39, whose novel about the son of an English peer raised by apes will have 26 sequels (Burroughs will also write science fiction novels).
Writer-novelist-poet Paul J. L. von Heyse dies at Munich April 2 at age 84; Henri Alain-Fournier is reported missing in action near Verdun September 22 at age 27.
Poetry: The Congo and Other Poems by Vachel Lindsay; North of Boston by San Francisco-born poet Robert Lee Frost, 40, whose poem "The Death of the Hired Man" contains the line, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." His "Mending Wall" contains the lines, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall" and "Good fences make good neighbors"; Responsibilities by William Butler Yeats; Los Sonetos de la Muerte by Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral (Lucila Godoy Alcayaga), 25; The Rosary (Chetki) by Anna Akhmatova; A Twin in the Clouds by Russian poet Boris (Leonidovich) Pasternak, 24; Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds by Amy Lowell, who has moved to England and become a leader of the Imagists; Starting Point (Der Aufbrach) by Ernst Stadler, who wins the Iron Cross but is killed at Ypres at age 31.
Poet Frédéric Mistral dies at his native Maillane, Bouches-du-Rhöne, March 25 at age 83; Charles Péguy September 5 at age 41 while leading his troops at the Battle of the Marne.
Juvenile: Penrod by Booth Tarkington; Kewpie Kutouts by Rose Cecil O'Neill.
Painting: The Guitarist by Georges Braque; The Sunblind by Juan Gris; Exit the Ballets Russes by Fernand Léger; The Enigma of a Day and Melancholy, The Child's Brain, and Mystery of a Street by Giorgio de Chirico; The Creator by Paul Klee, who visits Tunisia and "discovers" color; Comic Wedlock and I See Again in Memory My Dear Udnie by Francis Picabia, who moves to New York at the outbreak of war; The Bride of the Wind by painter-playwright Oskar Kokoschka; Reclining Woman with Blond Hair, Blind Mother, and Frederike Beer by Egon Schiele; Effervescence by German painter Hans Hofmann, 34; An Englishman in Moscow by Kasimir Malevich; Electric Prisms (oil on canvas) by Sonia Delaunay; Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Taketori monogatari) and Amitabha Hall (Amida-dō) by Japanese painter Kokei Kobayashi, 31; Backyards, Greenwich Village by John Sloan; Portrait of a German Officer and Painting No. 3 by Lewiston, Me.-born New York painter Marsden (originally Edmund) Hartley, 37, who has been to Germany and been influenced by new expressionistic styles (as well as by the late Paul Cézanne); British artist Augustus (Edwin) John, 36, serves in France as official war artist. Cartoonist-illustrator Sir John Tenniel dies at his native London January 25 just 5 days short of his 94th birthday.
London's Old Vic Shakespeare Company opens at a theater that was given its name in 1833 for the princess who became Queen Victoria 4 years later.
Theater: The Bow of Odysseus (Der Bogen des Odysseus) by Gerhart Hauptmann 1/17 at Berlin's Deutsches Künstlertheater; The Exchange (L'échange) by Paul Claudel 1/22 at the Théâtre du Vieux Colombes, Paris; The Snob (Der Snob) by Carl Sternheim 2/2 at Berlin; Too Many Cooks by Boston-born playwright-actor Frank Craven, 33, 2/24 at New York's 39th Street Theater, with Craven, 223 perfs.; Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw 4/11 at His Majesty's Theatre, London, with Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, 61, as Professor Higgins, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, now 47, as the Covent Garden flower girl Eliza Doolittle, whose shocker "Not bloody likely" in Act III helps give Shaw another commercial success, 118 perfs. (Mrs. Campbell, whose husband developed tuberculosis, went to South Africa, and was killed in the Boer War, soon marries George Cornwallis-West a few hours after his divorce from Jennie Jerome, widow of the late Lord Randolph Churchill); The Hostage (L'otage) by Paul Claudel 6/5 at the Théâtre de l'oeuvre, Paris; On Trial by New York-born playwright Elmer Rice (originally Reizenstein), 21, 8/19 at New York's Candler Theater, with Canadian-born actor Thomas B. Findlay, 40, Brooklyn-born actress Mary Ryan, 28, 365 perfs.; Twin Beds by Salisbury Field and Margaret Mayo 8/14 at New York's Fulton Theater (to Harris Theater 6/7/1915), with Chicago-born actress Madge Kennedy, 23, 411 perfs.; Under Cover by New York-born playwright Roi Cooper Megrue, 30, 8/26 at New York's Cort Theater, with San Antonio-born actress Lily Cahill, 29, Lucile Watson, 349 perfs.; It Pays to Advertise by Roi Cooper Megrue and New York-born playwright Walter Hackett, 38, 9/8 at George M. Cohan's Theater, with Grant Mitchell, Providence, R.I.-born actress Ruth Shepley, 22, 399 perfs.; Daddy Long-Legs by Jean Webster 9/28 at New York's Gaiety Theater, with Boots Wooster, New York-born actress Ruth Chatterton, 20, Charles Waldron, Gladys Smith; Kick In by Canadian-born playwright Willard Mack, 40, 10/15 at New York's Longacre Theater (to Republic Theater 11/16), with John Barrymore, 188 perfs.; The Song of Songs by Edward Sheldon (who has adapted a novel by Hermann Sudermann) 12/22 at New York's Eltinge Theater, with Ernest Glendenning, New York-born actress Dorothy Donnelly, 34, 191 perfs. (now 28, Sheldon will experience a stiffening of the knees next summer, his ankylosing spondylitis [a severe form of arthritis] will grow progressively worse, and by the 1920s he will be almost completely paralyzed and able to travel only by having a window removed from a sleeping car to accommodate his stretcher).
Theater impresario B. F. Keith dies at Palm Beach March 26 at age 68.
Illusionist Harry Houdini has himself locked in irons July 15 and thrown into a small cell in the prison ship Success docked at New York's 79th Street Hudson River boat basin (see
Films: Giovanni Pastrone's Cabiria with titles by Gabriele D'Annunzio (set in the time of the Second Punic War, it opens at Turin in April and is then shown at New York); D. W. Griffith's Judith of Bethulia with Blanche Sweet, Alabama-born actor Henry B. Walthall, 34, New Mexico-territory born actress Mae (originally Mary) Marsh, 19, in the first American-made four-reel film. Biograph cameraman Billy Bitzer, now 40, helps Griffith obtain new effects; Oscar C. Apfel and Cecil B. DeMille's The Squaw Man with Dustin Farnum repeating his stage role in the first full-length feature to be filmed (in a rented barn) at Hollywood, Calif. Also D. W. Griffith's The Battle of Elderbush Gulch; Piero Fosco's Cabiria with Lidia Quaranta; Charles Chaplin's Between Showers; Mack Sennett's Curses! They Remarked; D. W. Griffith's The Mother and the Law attacks factory owners who pose as public benefactors; Donald MacKenzie's The Perils of Pauline with Missouri-born actress Pearl Fay White, 22, and Crane Wilbur. Produced by a Hearst-controlled company, it is a "cliff-hanger" serial ("To be continued") are designed to bring audiences back each week to see "The Lady Daredevil of the Fillums"; Colin Campbell's The Spoilers with William Farnum (an eight-reel film that runs for more than 1 hour); Alice Guy-Blaché's The Tigress with Olga Petrova, 28; Mack Sennett's Tillie's Punctured Romance with Charles Chaplin, Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Chester Conklin, Mack Swain, Charles Bennett, and the Keystone Kops in the first U.S. feature-length comedy; comic-strip pioneer Winsor McCay's Gertie, the Trained Dinosaur is a cartoon with innovations that will inspire animators such as Walt Disney and Walter Lanz. Having drawn and hand-colored thousands of 35 mm. frames, McCay exhibits the picture at vaudeville theaters, standing beside the screen dressed as a lion tamer, speaking to Gertie, appearing to toss objects to her, and creating a sensation.
New York's Strand movie theater opens with 3,300 seats on Times Square at the northwest corner of Broadway and 47th Street. Buffalo, N.Y.-born nickelodeon operator Mitchell L. "Moe" Marks has acquired the property and given architect Thomas Lamb and showman S. L. "Roxy" Rothafel, now 32, free reign to create a theater—the largest such theater in the country to date—that will "stand for all time as the model of Moving Picture Palaces." In addition to showing films, the so-called "dream palace" makes movie-going respectable for middle-class audiences by offering a ballet troupe, opera selections, and a symphony orchestra, ending the appeal of nickelodeons. The United States will have more than 21,000 such movie palaces by 1916 (see Rialto, 1916).
Chicago's Essenay Studios pays Charles Chaplin $1,000 per week to make films in the Windy City. Opened on the South Side 7 years ago by actor-director Broncho Billy Anderson (originally Maxwell Aronson) and projector operator George Spone, Essanay is part of the Motion Picture Patents Co. monopoly; it will produce 50 Chaplin shorts.
The first movie column appears in the Chicago Record-Herald under the byline Louella Parsons. Former Chicago Tribune reporter Parsons (Louella Oettinger), 21, has recently sold a film script for $25 (see
Opera: Madeleine 1/24 at New York's Metropolitan Opera House with Frances Alda, music by Victor Herbert; Claudia Muzio appears at Covent Garden's summer season singing such roles as Desdemona in the 1887 Verdi opera Otello and the title role in the 1900 Puccini opera Tosca (with Enrico Caruso); Austrian authorities intern soprano Emmy Destinn in the Bohemian castle of Stráznal Nezarkou that she has purchased (she is an avowed sympathizer with the cause of Czech independence); Maggie Teyte joins the Boston Opera Company, with which she will sing until 1917; Francesco da Rimini 2/19 at Turin's Teatro Regio, with music by Italian composer Riccardo Zandonai, 30; Marouf, Savetier de Caire 5/15 at the 0péra-Comique, Paris, with music by French composer Henri Rabaud; Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli, 24, makes his operatic debut at Rovigo 10/14 singing the role of Enzo in the 1876 Ponchielli opera La Giocanda.
Soprano Lillian Nordica dies of pneumonia complications at Batavia, Java, May 10 at age 54. The ship that was carrying her around the world on a concert tour ran aground in the Gulf of Papua in December of last year.
Dancer-choreographer Ruth St. Denis marries dancer Ted Shawn, 22, and moves with him to Los Angeles, where they found the Denishawn School of Dancing and the Denishawn Dancers (see
Japan's Takarazuka theater gives its first performance at Takarazuka City, a spa in the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto area. It is the brainchild of entrepreneur Ichizo Kobayashi, 40, who founded the Hankyu Railway in 1898 and is establishing Takarazuka City as a resort; he decrees that "charming," well-bred girls shall play male as well as female roles in sentimental, platonic love stories, most of them musicals. All-girl Takarazuka companies will entertain middle-class (and less affluent) audiences for more than 75 years, both at Takarazuka and at Tokyo, while the troupe also puts on small-scale shows and traveling shows that will play not only in Japan but also abroad.
First performances: "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring" by Frederick Delius 1/20 at London. Delius is losing his eyesight to syphilis; London Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams 3/27 at London.
Broadway musicals: Sari 1/3 at the Liberty Theater, with Harry Davenport, Cincinnati-born actor Karl Stall, 42, music by Hungarian-born composer Emmerich Kálmán, 31, lyrics by C. C. S. Cushing and Eric Heath, 151 perfs.; Shameen Dhu 2/2 at the Grand Opera House, with Chauncey Olcott, Rida Johnson Young, songs that include "Too-Ra-Loo-Ral, That's an Irish Lullaby" by Michigan-born songwriter James Royce Shannon, 32 perfs.; The Crinoline Girl 3/16 at the Knickerbocker Theater, with Julian Eltinge, music by Percy Wenrich, lyrics by Eltinge, book by Otto Hauerbach, 88 perfs.; The Ziegfeld Follies 6/1 at the New Amsterdam Theater, with Ed Wynn, Ann Pennington, Leon Errol, music by New York-born composer Dave Stamper, 30, Raymond Hubbell, and others, lyrics by Detroit-born writer Edward Eugene "Gene" Buck, 29, and others, 112 perfs; The Passing Show 6/10 at the Winter Garden Theater, with Marilyn Miller making her debut at age 17, barelegged chorus girls, music chiefly by Sigmund Romberg, lyrics chiefly by Harold Atteridge, 133 perfs.; The Girl from Utah 8/24 at the Knickerbocker Theater with songs that include "They Didn't Believe Me" by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Manchester, England-born writer Herbert Reynolds (Michael E. Rourke), 47, 120 perfs.; Wars of the World 9/5 at the Hippodrome, with music and lyrics by Manuel Klein, 229 perfs.; Chin Chin 10/20 at the Globe Theater, with Fred Stone, music by Ivan Caryll, book and lyrics by Anne Caldwell, songs that include "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," 295 perfs.; The Only Girl 11/2 at the 39th Street Theater, with Thurston Hall, Boston-born actor Jed Prouty, 35, music by Victor Herbert, lyrics by Henry Blossom, songs that include "You're the Only Girl for Me," 240 perfs.; Watch Your Step 12/8 at the New Amsterdam Theater, with Vernon and Irene Castle doing the Castle Walk, Fanny Brice, music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, songs that include "Play a Simple Melody," 175 perfs.; Tonight's the Night 12/24 at the Shubert Theater, with George Grossmith Jr., book by Fred Thompson, music by Paul A. Rubens, 108 perfs.; Hello Broadway 12/25 at the Astor Theater, with George M. Cohan, William Collier, Rozsika Dolly, Evansville, Ind.-born actress Louise Dresser (originally Louise Josephine Kerlin), 36, Brooklyn-born singer-dancer Peggy Wood, 22, book and music by Cohan, 123 perfs.
Popular songs: "Keep the Home Fires Burning" by Welsh-born London composer Ivor Novello (originally David Ivor Davies), 21, lyrics by American-born poetess Lena Gulbert Ford, who will die in a zeppelin raid on London in 1918; "Colonel Bogey March" by London composer Kenneth J. Alford (F. J. Ricketts); "There's a Long, Long Trail" by Alonzo "Zo" Elliott, now 23, who wrote the music for the "hobo song" last year while attending Yale, lyrics by his fellow Yaleman (and journalist) W. Stoddard King, now 25; "St. Louis Blues" by W. C. Handy; "12th Street Rag" by Euday L. Bowman, 27; "The Missouri Waltz" by John Valentine Eppel, 43; "When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose" by Percy Wenrich, lyrics by Jack Mahoney, 32; "A Little Bit of Heaven (And They Called It Ireland)" by Ernest R. Ball, lyrics by J. Keirn Brennan; "By the Beautiful Sea" by self-taught Atlantic City, N.J.-born composer Harry Carroll, 21 (who has played piano at movie theaters since grade school), lyrics by Harold R. Atteridge.
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) founded by nine songwriters at New York February 13 will represent the interests of music writers, lyricists, and publishers (see
Organ manufacturer Rudolph Wurlitzer dies at Cincinnati January 14 at age 82; organ manufacturer Robert Hope-Jones at Rochester, N.Y., September 13 at age 55.
The first Millrose Games open January 28 at New York's Madison Square Garden. Named for the country estate of department store executive Lewis Rodman Wanamaker, 50, the indoor track meet includes as a major event the Wanamaker Mile foot race.
Sir Norman Brookes wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Mrs. Chambers in women's singles; Richard Norris Williams II, 22, wins in men's singles at Newport, Mary Browne in women's singles.
Rochester, N.Y.-born golfer Walter (Charles) Hagen wins the U.S. Open at age 21 to begin a remarkable career that will include 11 major championships. Hagen has been a caddie since age 9.
Chicago's Wrigley Field has its beginnings April 23 as Wiedman Park opens for the Federal League's Chicago Whales with four acres of bluegrass and a single-deck grandstand. Chicago beats the Kansas City Packers 9 to 1, but the Federal League will be disbanded next year, chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley, Jr. will buy the field in 1917, and he will rename it.
The Boston Braves win the World Series, defeating Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics 4 games to 0.
Barcelona's El Sport bullring opens with 19,582 seats, the second largest in Spain. Matador Joselito (José Miguel Isidro del Sagrado Corazon de Jesus Gómez y Gallito), 19, kills six giant bulls in the arena at Madrid July 3, making 25 quites, placing 18 banderillos, and making 242 passes with cape and muleta.
Carlisle Indian School football coach Glenn S. "Pop" Warner resigns under pressure, having been accused of pocketing gate receipts and betting on his own team. Inventor of the "hidden ball play" and a great innovator, he goes to the University of Pittsburgh and will coach for 44 seasons at Pitt and five other schools, introducing the spiral punt, the screen play, single- and double-wing formations, the naked reverse, the three-point stance, the use of shoulder and thigh pads, and numbered jerseys for players.
The Yale Bowl opens at New Haven, Conn., November 21 for the Harvard-Yale game (Harvard wins 36 to 0). Yale will enlarge the $750,000, 61,000-seat football stadium to seat 74,786 as college football becomes a major sporting attraction.
President Wilson proclaims the first national Mother's Day as his wife, Ellen, lies on her deathbed (see 1913). The second Sunday in May will become the biggest business day of the year for U.S. restaurants and flower shops, but Anna May Jarvis will fight for the rest of her life against the commercialization of the observance that she began at Philadelphia 6 years ago (see popular songs ["M-O-T-H-E-R"],
Toro Co. has its beginnings in the Toro Motor Co. founded July 10 at Minneapolis to build engines for the Bull Tractor Co. It will make steam engines for merchant ships in 1918, rename itself Toro Manufacturing Co. in 1919 and introduce the To-Ro cultivator, mount five lawn mowers behind a Toro tractor in 1920 the following year to mow the fairways at a Minnesota country club, and introduce fairway sprinklers in 1925 (see power lawn mower, 1935).
Noxema skin cream has its beginnings in a sunburn soother introduced by Baltimore pharmacist George Bunting, who changes the name of "Dr. Bunting's Sunburn Remedy" to Noxema after a customer tells him it "knocked out his eczema."
Helena Rubinstein challenges Elizabeth Arden for leadership in the fledgling U.S. cosmetics industry (see 1910). Now 44 (Rubinstein claims to be 54 so that her products will seem more effective), the kerosene dealer's daughter left her native Poland after an unhappy love affair at age 24 to stay with relatives in the Australian outback, made $100,000 in 3 years near Melbourne selling to sunburned Australian women a product she formulated from ingredients that included almonds and tree bark, calling it Valaze Cream. She has opened England's first beauty salon in London, opened another one in Paris, and is the reigning beauty adviser to French and British society. The four-foot-eleven cosmetician's Maison de Beauté in Manhattan's 49th Street gains quick popularity. Rubinstein will introduce medicated face creams and waterproof mascara, and she will pioneer in sending saleswomen out on road tours to demonstrate proper makeup application as she builds a chain of beauty salons, saying, "There are no ugly women, only lazy ones" (see 1928).
Cosmetics maker Max Factor creates a makeup that does not crack or cake, making it ideal for film actors exposed to strong lights. Now 37, the Polish-born Factor was apprenticed to a dentist-pharmacist at age 8 in his native Lodz; opened his own shop in a Moscow suburb selling hand-made rouges, creams, fragrances, and wigs; found favor with a traveling theatrical troupe; won appointment as official cosmetic expert to Russia's imperial family; came to America with his family in 1904; had his name changed from Faktor at Ellis Island; sold his wares at the St. Louis fair; and has become a Hollywood makeup artist. He lets film makers rent his expensive wigs on condition that they give his sons roles as extras (the boys keep watch on the wigs; see 1935).
Couturier Paul Poiret closes his 10-year-old Paris fashion house and joins the military (see 1913). Now 35, he will reopen in 1918, but although he will open shops at Biarritz, Cannes, Deauville, and La Boule he will quickly lose ground to rivals after 1925.
The elastic brassiere patented November 3 by New Rochelle-born New York inventor Mary Phelps "Polly" Jacob, 23, will supplant the corset now in common use (see 1902). Dressing for a dance as a debutante 2 years ago Jacob found that her bulky whalebone corset not only hampered her freedom of movement but that its cover showed over her decolletage; she asked her French maid, Marie, for two silk pocket handkerchiefs, some pink ribbon, and needle and thread, and the two devised the prototype bra, which flattens the bustline against the chest. A descendant of steamboat pioneer Robert Fulton with prominent New England forebears, Jacob was asked by friends to make bras for them, a manufacturer requested a sample and enclosed a dollar, and with this encouragement she engaged a designer to make drawings, borrowed $100, rented two sewing machines, and hired two immigrant girls to stitch up a few hundred Backless Brassieres. She took them to New York's better stores but has met with little success. Granted a U.S. patent No. 1,115,674, she will sell it through a family friend to the Warner Brothers Corset Co. of Bridgeport, Conn., which for $1,500 will acquire all rights to a patent that will later be estimated to be worth $15 million (see Maiden Form, 1923).
Italian shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo, 16, emigrates to America and will open a shoemaking and repair shop with his brothers at Santa Barbara, Calif. Having studied mass production in shoe design at Naples, he will create footwear for the American Film Co., relocate to Hollywood in 1923, return to Italy in 1927, start a business at Florence in 1929, go bankrupt in 1933, go back into business, and become a major figure in the industry.
U.S. menswear manufacturers begin advertising "natural, easy" styling as suits become more youth-oriented, with unpadded shoulders, soft chest, patch pockets, center vents, and slim, unpleated trousers.
Doublemint chewing gum is introduced by William Wrigley Jr. (see 1893).
Tinkertoy begins to compete with the Erector Set launched last year. Evanston, Ill., stonemason and tombstone cutter Charles H. Pajeau created the toy last year after seeing his children creating structures by sticking pencils into empty thread spools, taking them apart, and reassembling them; he mentioned the idea on a commuter train Chicago Board of Trade trader Robert Pettit, they started a company (The Toy Tinkers) and demonstrate their wooden "Thousand Wonder Toy" at the American Toy Fair in New York; receiving only tepid response, Pajeau hires some midgets, dresses them as elves, has them play with the toy in the window of a Chicago department store, and within 1 year will have sold more than a million sets. He and Pettit will add an electric motor to the set in 1919 and continue their partnership until Pettit's death in 1943 (see Lincoln Logs, 1916).
A. C. Gilbert redesigns the girders of his Erector Set, adding a groove on each edge to give them more strength (the girders in the sets introduced last year were flanged and had an angle bent on both edges); instead of having the set's electric motor packed in pieces, he ships sets with factory-assembled motors. The toy's scientific and technological advances will win it a gold medal at next year's Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, and Gilbert will introduce the first toy train made from Erector parts—a steam engine, tender, gondola, and caboose, but no single set will have enough parts to build an entire train (see 1916).
Coney Island's Steeplechase Park builder George C. Tilyou dies at Brooklyn, N.Y., November 30 at age 52.
Germany's 107th Regiment of Leipzig leaves its trenches December 14 and follows a band playing Christmas carols. Singing lustily and distributing gifts to the enemy, the Germans play football (soccer) with the enemy in the afternoon, German units in some other sectors (mostly Saxons, Bavarians, Alsatians, and Westphalians) follow suit, British Tommies and French poilus respond, men shake hands in No Man's Land (Niemandsland), exchanging gifts of chocolate cake, cognac, tobacco, newspapers, and postcards, although Prussians generally remain aloof; the generals order a resumption of hostilities December 15, but many soldiers shoot for a few days at the sky rather than at enemy targets.
Interpol (the International Criminal Police Organization) has its beginnings in the first International Police Congress held at Monaco from April 14 to 18. Legal experts from 14 countries and territories study the possibility of establishing an international office to keep criminal records and coordinate