1917 in the United States

1917 in the United States
Decades:	1890s 1900s – 1910s – 1920s 1930s
Years:	1914 1915 1916 – 1917 – 1918 1919 1920
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48 stars (1912 – 1959)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1865–1918)

Events from the year 1917 in the United States.

Incumbents

• President: Woodrow Wilson (Democratic)
• Vice President: Thomas R. Marshall (Democratic)
• Chief Justice: Edward Douglass White
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark (D-Missouri)
• Congress: 64th (until March 4), 65th (starting March 4)

Events

January–March

President Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in the official relations with Germany

February 24: The Zimmermann Telegram is shown to the U.S. government.

• January 1 – The University of Oregon defeats the University of Pennsylvania 14–0 in college football's 3rd Annual Rose Bowl.
• January 11 – German saboteurs set off the Kingsland Explosion at Kingsland, New Jersey (now Lyndhurst), one of the events leading to U.S. involvement in World War I.
• January 22 – World War I: President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe.
• January 25 – The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million.
• January 25 – An anti-prostitution drive in San Francisco attracts huge crowds to public meetings. At one meeting attended by 7,000 people, 20,000 are kept out for lack of room. In a conference with Rev. Paul Smith, an outspoken foe of prostitution, 300 prostitutes make a plea for toleration, explaining they had been forced into the practice by poverty. When Smith asks if they will take other work at $8 to $10 a week, the ladies laugh derisively, which loses them public sympathy. The police close about 200 houses of prostitution shortly thereafter. [1]
• January 28 – The United States ends its search for Pancho Villa.
• January 30 – Pershing's troops in Mexico begin withdrawing back to the United States. They reach Columbus, Ohio February 5.
• February 3 – World War I: The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany.
• February 24 – World War I: United States ambassador to the United Kingdom, Walter H. Page, is shown the intercepted Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany offers to give the American Southwest back to Mexico if Mexico declares war on the United States.
• February 26 – The Original Dixieland Jass Band records their first commercial record, with the tunes "Livery Stable Blues" and "Dixie Jazz Band One Step".
• March 1 – The U.S. government releases the plaintext of the Zimmermann Telegram to the public.
• March 2 – The enactment of the Jones Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.
• March 4 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson begins his second term.
• March 4 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman member of the United States House of Representatives.
• March 8 – The United States Senate adopts the cloture rule in order to limit filibusters.

• March 31 – The United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies, which become the US Virgin Islands, after paying $25 million to Denmark.

April–June

• April 2 – World War I: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson asks the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war on Germany.
• April 6 – World War I: The United States declares war on Germany.
• April 10 – An ammunition factory explosion in Chester, Pennsylvania kills 133.
• May 18 – World War I: The Selective Service Act passes the U.S. Congress, giving the President the power of conscription.
• May 21 – Over 300 acres (73 blocks) are destroyed in the Great Atlanta fire of 1917.
• May 26 – A tornado strikes Mattoon, Illinois, causing devastation and killing 101 people.
• June 4 – The very first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for a biography (for Julia Ward Howe). Jean Jules Jusserand receives the first Pulitzer for history for his work With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert Bayard Swope receives the first Pulitzer for journalism for his work for the New York World.
• June 5 – World War I: Conscription begins in the United States.
• June 15 – The United States enacts the Espionage Act.

July–September

• July 1 – A labor dispute ignites a race riot in East St. Louis, Illinois, which leaves 250 dead.
• July 12 – The Phelps Dodge Corporation deports over 1,000 suspected IWW members from Bisbee, Arizona.
• July 28 – The Silent Protest is organized by the NAACP in New York to protest the East St. Louis Riot of July 2, as well as lynchings in Texas and Tennessee.
• August – The Green Corn Rebellion, an uprising by several hundred farmers against the World War I draft, takes place in central Oklahoma.
• August 3 – The New York Guard is founded.
• August 23 – Following the detention of an African American soldier, 150 soldiers of the 24th Infantry Regiment march on Houston in what would be called the Houston Riot; four soldiers and 15 civilians die.

October–December

• October 19 – Love Field in Dallas, Texas is opened.
• November 15 – "Night of Terror": The superintendent of the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia orders the guards to brutalize the suffragist inmates.
• November 24 – In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 9 members of the Milwaukee Police Department are killed by a bomb, the most fatal single event in U.S. police history until the September 11, 2001 attacks.
• December 25 – Why Marry?, the first dramatic play to win a Pulitzer Prize, opens at the Astor Theatre in New York City.
• December 26 – United States president Woodrow Wilson uses the Federal Possession and Control Act to place most U.S. railroads under the United States Railroad Administration, hoping to more efficiently transport troops and materials for the war effort.

Undated

• The last male Carolina Parakeet dies in Cincinnati Zoo.

Ongoing

• Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)
• Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937)
• U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915–1934)
• Pancho Villa Expedition (1916–1917)
• World War I, U.S. involvement (1917–1918)
• First Red Scare (1917–1920)

Births

This section requires expansion.

• May 29 – Fred Ascani, Air Force test pilot (died 2010)
• June 10 – Al Schwimmer, American-born Israeli businessman, founder of Israel Aerospace Industries (died 2011)
• August 12 – LeRoy Grannis, surfing photographer (died 2011)
• August 18
  • Zvi Keren American-born Israeli pianist, musicologist and composer (died 2008)
  • Caspar Weinberger, U.S. Secretary of Defense 1981-1987 under Reagan; Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare 1973-1975 under Nixon and Ford (died 2006)
• October 10 – Thelonious Monk, jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music" (died 1982)
• October 21 – Dizzy Gillespie, jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer (died 1993)

Deaths

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External links

• Media related to 1917 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons