1915 in the United States

Events from the year 1915 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government President: Woodrow Wilson (D-New Jersey) Vice President: Thomas R. Marshall (D-Indiana) Chief Justice: Edward Douglass White (Louisiana) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark (D-Missouri) Congress: 63rd (until March 4), 64th (starting March 4)

State governments Governors and lieutenant governors Governors

Lieutenant governors

Events

January–March

January – While working as a cook at New York's Sloan Hospital under an assumed name, "Typhoid Mary" infects 25 people, and is placed in quarantine for life. January 12 – The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to give women the right to vote. January 18 – Charles Henderson is sworn in as the 35th governor of Alabama replacing Emmet O'Neal. January 21 – Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit, Michigan. January 26 – Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado is established. January 28 – An act of the U.S. Congress designates the United States Coast Guard, begun in 1790, as a military branch over 19 years. February 1 – Fox Film is founded. February 2 – Vanceboro international bridge bombing February 8 – The controversial film, The Birth of a Nation, directed by D. W. Griffith, premieres in Los Angeles. February 12 – In Washington, D.C. the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place. February 20 – In San Francisco, California the Panama–Pacific International Exposition is opened. March 3 – NACA, the predecessor of NASA, is founded. March 25 – The USS F-4 submarine sinks off Hawaii; 23 are killed. March 28 – The first Roman Catholic Liturgy is celebrated by Archbishop John Ireland at the newly consecrated Cathedral of Saint Paul in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

April–June

May 6 – Babe Ruth hits his first career home run off of Jack Warhop. May 7 – The is sunk on passage from New York to Britain by a German U-boat, killing 1,198. May 22 – Lassen Peak, one of the Cascade Volcanoes in Northern California, erupts, sending an ash plume 30,000 feet in the air and devastating the nearby area with pyroclastic flows and lahars. It is the only volcano to erupt in the contiguous United States between 1900 and the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. June 9 – U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigns over a disagreement regarding his nation's handling of the Lusitania sinking. June 12 – "The class the stars fell on" graduates from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. June 21 – Guinn v. United States is decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, finding grandfather clause exemptions to literacy tests for voters to be unconstitutional. June 22 – The Imperial Valley earthquakes shook southeastern Southern California, causing six deaths and financial losses of $900,000. Each shock in this doublet earthquake measured 5.5 and had a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe).

July–September July 24 – The steamer Eastland capsizes in central Chicago, with the loss of 844 lives. July 28 – The United States occupation of Haiti begins. August 5–23 – Hurricane Two of the 1915 Atlantic hurricane season over Galveston and New Orleans leaves 275 dead. August 17 – Jewish American Leo Frank is lynched for the murder of a 13-year-old girl in Atlanta."Grim Tragedy in Woods". The New York Times, August 19, 1915. p. 1. Via Internet Archive. August 31 – Jimmy Lavender of the Chicago Cubs pitches a no hitter against the New York Giants. September 11 – The Pennsylvania Railroad begins electrified commuter rail service between Paoli and Philadelphia, using overhead AC trolley wires for power. This type of system is later used in long-distance passenger trains between New York City, Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

October–December October 2 – The 6.8 Pleasant Valley earthquake shook north-central Nevada with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), causing limited damage and pronounced fault scarps along the base of the Tobin Range. October 4 – Dinosaur National Monument is established. October 19 – Mexican Revolution: The U.S. recognizes the Mexican government of Venustiano Carranza de facto (not de jure until 1917). October 21 – The United Daughters of the Confederacy holds its first annual meeting outside the South, in San Francisco. Historian General Mildred Rutherford addresses the gathering on the "Historical Sins of Omission & Commission", of Yankee historians. October 25 – Lyda Conley, the first American Indian woman to appear before the Supreme Court of the United States as a lawyer, is admitted to practice there."Washington, Oct. 25." The New York Times, October 26, 1915. November 18 – Release of Inspiration, the first mainstream movie in which a leading actress (Audrey Munson) appears nude. November 23 – The Triangle Film Corporation opens its new motion picture theater in Massillon, Ohio. November 27 (Thanksgiving Night) – Second Ku Klux Klan established in Stone Mountain, Georgia by William Joseph Simmons. December 10 – The 1 millionth Ford car rolls off the assembly line at the River Rouge Plant in Detroit, Michigan. December 18 – United States president Woodrow Wilson marries Edith B. Galt, in Washington, D.C.

Undated

Emory College is rechartered as Emory University, and plans to move its main campus from Oxford, Georgia to Atlanta. The first stop sign appears in Detroit, Michigan. Colonel Francis G. Ward Pumping Station in Buffalo, New York, the largest in the US at this time, begins operation. Woman's Peace Party organized. Thomas Lyle Williams produces the mascara Maybelline. Only year in which all five surviving Marx Brothers appear together on stage. Carrier Engineering, predecessor of Carrier Global, a global air conditioning brand, is founded in New Jersey, United States. The WWI song Just for the Sake of Gold is published.

Ongoing Progressive Era (1890s–1920s) Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937) U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915–1934)

Births January 1 – Tom Godwin, science fiction author (died 1980) January 2 – John Hope Franklin, historian (died 2009) January 3 – Sid Hudson, baseball player (died 2008) January 4 – Meg Mundy, English-born actress (died 2016) January 5 – Arthur H. Robinson, geographer and cartographer (died 2004) January 6 – Don Edwards, politician (died 2015) January 9 – Anita Louise, actress (died 1970) January 14 – Mark Goodson, television game show producer (died 1992) January 16 – Leslie H. Martinson, television and film director (died 2016) January 20 – Edward Stewart, set decorator (died 1999) January 22 – C. L. Franklin, minister and Civil Rights Activist, father of Aretha Franklin (died 1984) January 24 – Robert Motherwell, painter (died 1991) January 29 Albert Henderson, actor (died 2004) John Serry, Sr., musician, composer and arranger (died 2003) January 30 – Ed Keats, admiral (died 2019) January 31 Alan Lomax, folklorist and musicologist (died 2002) Thomas Merton, monk and author (died 1968) February 1 – Alicia Rhett, actress (died 2014) February 5 – Robert Hofstadter, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990) February 10 – Karl Winsch, baseball player and manager (died 2001) February 12 Richard G. Colbert, admiral (died 1973) Andrew Goodpaster, general (died 2005) February 14 – Ray Evans, composer (died 2007) February 16 – Jim O'Hora, college football coach (died 2005) February 19 – Fred Freiberger, screenwriter and television producer (died 2003) February 21 – Ann Sheridan, film actress (died 1967) February 23 – Paul Tibbets, World War II bomber pilot (Enola Gay) (died 2007) February 26 – Preacher Roe, baseball player (died 2008) February 27 – Dick Crockett, actor and stunt performer (died 1979) February 28 – Zero Mostel, born Samuel Mostel, film and stage actor (died 1977) March 1 – Elizabeth Peet McIntosh, spy (died 2015) March 15 – Carl Emil Schorske, cultural historian (died 2015) March 18 – Richard Condon, political novelist (died 1996) March 20 Marie M. Runyon, political activist (died 2018) Sister Rosetta Tharpe, gospel singer (died 1973) March 23 – Jack Rollins, film and television producer (died 2015) March 27 – Robert Lockwood Jr., musician (died 2006) March 29 – Helen Yglesias, novelist (died 2008) April 7 Stanley Adams, actor (died 1977) Bernadette Armiger, Catholic nun and president of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (died 1979) Albert O. Hirschman, German-born economist (died 2012) Billie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan, African-American jazz blues singer (died 1959) April 12 – George Hogan, basketball player (died 1965) April 16 – Joan Alexander, actress (died 2009) May 1 – Archie Williams, athlete (died 1993) May 2 Van Alexander, bandleader, arranger and composer (died 2015) Doris Fisher, singer and songwriter (died 2003) May 5 – Alice Faye, entertainer (died 1998) May 6 – Orson Welles, actor and director (died 1985) May 8 – Milton Meltzer, historical writer (died 2009) May 15 Ida Keeling, centenarian track and field athlete (died 2021) Paul Samuelson, economist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2009) May 26 – Sam Edwards, actor (died 2004) May 27 – Herman Wouk, novelist (died 2019) June 1 – John Randolph, actor (died 2004) June 2 – Jason Lee, politician and judge (died 1980) June 10 – Saul Bellow, Canadian-born novelist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2005) June 12 William MacVane, surgeon and politician (died 2010) David Rockefeller, banker and philanthropist (died 2017) June 15 – Thomas Huckle Weller, virologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2008) June 17 David "Stringbean" Akeman, country music banjo player (died 1973) Walter J. Zable, American founder and CEO of Cubic Corporation (died 2012) June 19 – Pat Buttram, actor (died 1994) June 22 – Randolph Hokanson, pianist (died 2018) June 24 – Bill Radovich, American football guard (died 2002) June 25 – Floyd Boring, Secret Service agent (died 2008) June 26 – Charlotte Zolotow, author (died 2013) June 27 – John Alexander Moore, zoologist (died 2002) June 28 – David "Honeyboy" Edwards, musician (died 2011) June 29 – John Charles Cutler, surgeon (died 2003) June 30 – Robert E. Hopkins, optical engineer (died 2009) July 1 – Willie Dixon, blues musician (died 1992) July 3 – Ralph Chapin, businessman and Zen practitioner (died 2000) July 4 – Timmie Rogers, actor and singer-songwriter (died 2006) July 5 – John Woodruff, African-American middle-distance runner (died 2007) July 7 Peter H. Dominick, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1963 to 1975 (died 1981) Reynaldo Guerra Garza, federal judge (died 2004) Billy Mure, guitarist (died 2013) July 8 – Neil D. Van Sickle, American Air Force major general (died 2019) July 9 – Joan Tompkins, actress (died 2005) July 12 – Emanuel Papper, anesthesiologist (died 2002) July 13 – Paul Williams, jazz and blues saxophonist (died 2002) July 15 William O. Baker, scientist and businessman, president of Bell Labs (died 2005) Albert Ghiorso, nuclear scientist (died 2010) July 16 – Elaine Barrie, actress (died 2003) July 17 – Fred Ball, movie studio executive, actor and brother of Lucille Ball (died 2007) July 18 – Roxana Cannon Arsht, judge (died 2003) July 20 – Gene Hasson, Major League baseball player (died 2003) July 28 Red Barrett, baseball player (died 1990) Dick Sprang, comic book artist during the golden age of comics and explorer (died 2000) Charles Townes, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2015) Frankie Yankovic, accordion player (died 1998) August 2 – Gary Merrill, actor (died 1990) August 4 – William Keene, actor (died 1992) August 5 – Mildred Burke, professional wrestler (died 1989) August 8 Alex Schoenbaum, collegiate football player and businessman (died 1996) Joseph P. Graw, businessman and politician (died 2018) August 9 – George W. BonDurant, preacher and academic administrator (died 2017) August 12