Events from the year 1911 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government President: William Howard Taft (R-Ohio) Vice President: James S. Sherman (R-New York) Chief Justice: Edward Douglass White (Louisiana) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Joseph Gurney Cannon (R-Illinois) (until March 4) Champ Clark (D-Missouri) (starting April 4) Congress: 61st (until March 4), 62nd (starting March 4)

State governments Governors and lieutenant governors Governors

Lieutenant governors

Events

January–March

January 5 – The Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity is founded at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. January 17 – Emmet O'Neal is sworn in as the 34th governor of Alabama replacing B. B. Comer. January 18 – Eugene Burton Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco Bay, marking the first time an aircraft lands on a ship. January 30 – The destroyer USS Terry makes the first aeroplane rescue at sea, saving the life of John McCurdy 10 miles from Havana, Cuba. January – The Masses socialist magazine begins publication. February 5 – The Missouri State Capitol building in Jefferson City, Missouri is destroyed by fire after a bolt of lightning strikes the dome. March – The first installment of a serialized version of Frederick Winslow Taylor's monograph, The Principles of Scientific Management, appears in The American Magazine. The complete series runs in the March, April, and May issues, giving a boost to the efficiency movement.The Principles of Scientific Management available online. March 10 – The Kansas legislature approves House Bill Number 906, effectively the first blue sky law in the United States, culminating an effort by Joseph Norman Dolley, Kansas' banking commissioner. March 25 – The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City kills 146. March 29 – The United States Army formally adopts the M1911 pistol as its standard sidearm, thus giving the gun its 1911 designation.

April–June

April 13 – Mexican Revolution: Rebels take Agua Prieta on the Sonora–Arizona border; government troops take the town back April 17 when the rebel leader "Red" López is drunk. April 17 – Southern Methodist University is chartered in Dallas, Texas. April 27 – Following the resignation and death of William P. Frye, a compromise is reached to rotate the office of President pro tempore of the United States Senate. April 30 – Sparks from a burning hayshed ignite the Great Fire of 1911, destroying much of downtown Bangor, Maine. May 15 – The U.S. Supreme Court declares Standard Oil to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders the company to be dissolved. May 23 – The main branch of the New York Public Library is officially opened. May 24 – Colorado National Monument is established. May 30 – The first Indianapolis 500-mile auto race is run. The winner is Ray Harroun in the Marmon 'Wasp.' June 5 – Charles F. Kettering files US patent 1,150,523, for an electric Engine Starting Device. June 16 A 772-gram stony meteorite strikes earth in Columbia County, Wisconsin, near the village of Kilbourn, damaging a barn. IBM is incorporated as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in Endicott, New York. July 24 – Hiram Bingham rediscovers Machu Picchu.

July–September August 8 – Public Law 62-5 sets the number of representatives in the United States House of Representatives at 435 (the law takes effect in 1913). August 29 – Ishi, last known member of the Yana people, leaves the California wilderness. September 11 – Middle Tennessee State University is founded in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, as Middle Tennessee Normal School. September 25 – Groundbreaking for Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, begins. September 30 – Austin Dam breaks, wiping out the town of Austin, Pennsylvania, and continuing downstream about 8 miles into the village of Costello.

October–December

October 7 – Outlaw Elmer McCurdy and "associates" are chased after trying to rob a train in Oklahoma. McCurdy on the run is eventually hunted down and shot by authorities. His body is never claimed and later is chemically petrified. Afterwards his remains serve as sideshow attractions in carnivals until 1976 when they are diagnosed by forensic experts to be McCurdy. McCurdy's body is finally buried in 1976 after a 65-year odyssey to the grave. October 24 – Orville Wright remains in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, setting a new world record that stands for 10 years. October 26 – In baseball, the Philadelphia Athletics defeat the New York Giants, 13–2, to win the 1911 World Series in six games. The game is tied 1–1 after three innings, but with four runs in the fourth, and seven runs in the seventh, the As demolish the Giants. October 28 – The Rosicrucian Fellowship's international headquarters opens at Mount Ecclesia, Oceanside, California (preceded by its formal constitution on August 8, 1909, at Seattle, Washington). November 3 – Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market to compete with the Ford Model T. November 11 The Great Blue Norther of 11/11/11: A record cold snap hits the United States Midwest; many cities break record highs and lows on the same day. The Upton Machine Company, now Whirlpool Corporation, was founded in St Joseph, MI. November 17 – The Omega Psi Phi fraternity is founded at Howard University. December 24 – The Lackawanna Cutoff, the first of two major cutoffs built by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, opens just 3 years after it was built.

Ongoing Progressive Era (1890s–1920s) Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937)

Births

January 3 – Al Sack, conductor, composer and violinist (died 1947) January 9 – Slim Gaillard, jazz musician (died 1991) January 19 – Ken Nelson, record producer and music executive (died 2008) January 30 – Hugh Marlowe, actor (died 1982) February 6 – Ronald Reagan, film actor, 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 (died 2004) February 12 – Stephen H. Sholes, recording executive (died 1968) February 13 – Jean Muir, actress (died 1996) March 9 – Ebby Halliday, American realtor (died 2015) March 13 L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction author, founder of Scientology (died 1986) Marie Rudisill, American TV and radio personality (died 2006) March 18 Al Benton, baseball player (died 1968) William Lava, composer (died 1971) March 24 Joseph Barbera, cartoonist (died 2006) Ephraim Engleman, rheumatologist (died 2015) March 25 – Jack Ruby, assassin of Lee Harvey Oswald (died 1967) March 26 – Tennessee Williams, playwright (died 1983) March 31 – Freddie Green, jazz musician (died 1987) April 8 – Melvin Calvin, chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1961 (died 1997) April 13 – Donald Leslie, creator of the Leslie speaker (died 2004) April 17 – Lester Rodney, journalist (died 2009) April 18 – Huntington Hartford, businessman (died 2008) May 6 – Frank Nelson, actor (died 1986) May 8 – Robert Johnson, Mississippi blues guitar player and singer-songwriter (died 1938) May 11 – Doodles Weaver, actor and singer (died 1983) May 24 – Carleen Hutchins, violin maker (died 2009) May 25 – Eric P. Newman, numismatist (died 2017) May 27 – Hubert Humphrey, 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969 and U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1949 to 1964 and from 1971 to 1978 (died 1978) June 5 – John C. Woods, US Army executioner (died in accident 1950 in the Marshall Islands) June 9 – Hawley Pratt, film director, animator and illustrator (died 1999) June 11 – Norman Malcolm, philosopher (died 1990) June 13 – Luis Walter Alvarez, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 (died 1988) June 21 Irving Fein, television and film producer (died 2012) Wonderful Smith, comedian (died 2008) June 23 – Hannah Weinstein, journalist, political activist and television producer (died 1984) June 24 – Norman Lessing, television screenwriter, producer, playwright and chess player (died 2001) June 25 – William Howard Stein, chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1972 (died 1980) June 26 – Babe Didrikson Zaharias, athlete and golfer (died 1956) June 27 – Ben Alexander, actor (died 1969) June 28 – Thalia Mara, ballet dancer, educator and author (d. 2003) July 1 – Guy Raymond, actor (died 1997) July 2 Fred Beaver, Muscogee Creek-Seminole painter and muralist (died 1980) Dorothy M. Horstmann, epidemiologist, virologist and pediatrician (died 2001) July 3 – Herbert E. Grier, electrical engineer (died 1999) July 4 – Frederick Seitz, solid-state physicist (died 2008) July 6 – June Gale, actress (died 1996) July 7 – Joan Perry, actress, model and singer (died 1996) July 8 John Ball, novelist (died 1988) Fred Kohler Jr., actor (died 1993) July 11 – Hyacinth Gabriel Connon, American-Filipino Lasallian Brother (died 1978 in the Philippines) July 14 – William Norris, business executive (died 2006) July 15 – Paul Zoll, cardiologist (died 1999) July 18 – Arch MacDonald, broadcast journalist and television pioneer (died 1985) July 19 – Ben Eastman, Olympic middle-distance runner (died 2002) July 26 – Jerry Burke, musician (died 1965) July 31 – George Liberace, musician (died 1983) August 2 – Rusty Wescoatt, actor (died 1987) August 8 – Rosetta LeNoire, actress (died 2002) August 9 – William A. Fowler, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 (died 1995) August 13 – Roy Pinney, herpetologist, photographer, war correspondent and writer (died 2010) August 15 – Anthony Salerno, gangster (died 1992) August 22 – Joe Hickey, politician and jurist, governor and senator from Wyoming (died 1970) August 24 – Durward Kirby, American television host and announcer (died 2000) September 6 – Harry Danning, baseball player (died 2004) September 8 – Byron Morrow, actor (died 2006) September 15 – Joseph Pevney, film and television director (died 2008) September 21 – Clair Engle, U.S. Senator from California from 1959 to 1964 (died 1964) September 23 – Jane Hadley Barkley, Second Lady of the United States (died 1964) September 24 – Ed Kretz, motorcycle racer (died 1996) September 30 – Ruth Gruber, journalist (died 2016) October 21 – William A. Mitchell, food chemist and inventor (died 2004) October 27 – Leif Erickson, American actor (died 1986) October 30 – Ruth Hussey, actress (died 2005) December 1 – Walter Alston, baseball player and manager (died 1984) December 10 – Chet Huntley, television reporter (died 1974) December 20 – Hortense Calisher, author (died 2009) December 26 – Steve Kordek, pinball innovator (died 2012) December 28 – Sam Levenson, humorist and author (died 1980)

Deaths January 7 – William Hall Sherwood, pianist and music educator (born 1854) January 9 – Edwin Arthur Jones, choral composer (born 1853) January 24 – David Graham Phillips, journalist and novelist, murdered (born 1867) February 1 – Charles Stillman Sperry, admiral (born 1847) February 7 – Hannah Whitall Smith, Quaker author (born 1832) February 22 – Frances Harper, African American abolitionist, poet and author (born 1825) March 4 – Ellen Maria Colfax, Second Lady of the United States (born 1836) March 18 – David Moffat, financier (born 1839) April 13 – William Keith, landscape painter (born 1838 in Scotland) April 14 George Cary Eggleston, memoirist (born 1839) Addie Joss, baseball player (born 1880) Denman Thompson, actor and playwright (born 1833) May 5 James A. Bland, African American musician and songwriter (born 1854) Halsey Ives, art teacher and curator (born 1847) May 9 – Thomas Wentworth Higginson, writer, abolitionist and advocate of women's suffrage (born 1823) May 21 – Williamina Fleming, astronomer (born 1857 in Scotland) May 22 – Elizabeth Smith Miller, women's rights campaigner (born 1822) May 30 – Milton Bradley, game pioneer and businessman (born 1836)