1911

Events from the year **1911 in the United States**.

* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Joseph Gurney Cannon (R-IL) (until March 4), Champ Clark (D-MO) (starting April 4)
* Congress: 61st (until March 4), 62nd (starting March 4)

Governors
* Governor of Alabama: B. B. Comer (Democratic) (until January 17), Emmet O'Neal (Democratic) (starting January 17)
* Governor of Arkansas: George Washington Donaghey (Democratic)
* Governor of California: James Gillett (Republican) (until January 3), Hiram Johnson (Republican) (starting January 3)
* Governor of Colorado: John F. Shafroth (Democratic)
* Governor of Connecticut: Frank B. Weeks (Republican) (until January 4), Simeon E. Baldwin (Democratic) (starting January 4)
* Governor of Delaware: Simeon S. Pennewill (Republican)
* Governor of Florida: Albert W. Gilchrist (Democratic)
* Governor of Georgia:
	+ until July 1: Joseph M. Brown (Democratic)
	+ July 1-November 16: Hoke Smith (Democratic)
	+ starting November 16: John M. Slaton (Democratic)
* Governor of Idaho: James H. Brady (Republican) (until January 2), James H. Hawley (Democratic) (starting January 2)
* Governor of Illinois: Charles S. Deneen (Republican)
* Governor of Indiana: Thomas R. Marshall (Democratic)
* Governor of Iowa: Beryl F. Carroll (Republican)
* Governor of Kansas: Walter R. Stubbs (Republican)
* Governor of Kentucky: Augustus E. Willson (Republican) (until December 12), James B. McCreary (Democratic) (starting December 12)
* Governor of Louisiana: Jared Young Sanders Sr. (Democratic)
* Governor of Maine: Bert M. Fernald (Republican) (until January 4), Frederick W. Plaisted (Democratic) (starting January 4)
* Governor of Maryland: Austin Lane Crothers (Democratic)
* Governor of Massachusetts: Eben Sumner Draper (Republican) (until January 5), Eugene Noble Foss (Democratic) (starting January 5)
* Governor of Michigan: Fred M. Warner (Republican) (until January 2), Chase Osborn (Republican) (starting January 2)
* Governor of Minnesota: Adolph O. Eberhart (Republican)
* Governor of Mississippi: Edmond Noel (Democratic)
* Governor of Missouri: Herbert S. Hadley (Republican)
* Governor of Montana: Edwin L. Norris (Democratic)
* Governor of Nebraska: Ashton C. Shallenberger (Democratic) (until January 5), Chester Hardy Aldrich (Republican) (starting January 5)
* Governor of Nevada: Denver S. Dickerson (Silver) (until January 2), Tasker L. Oddie (Republican) (starting January 2)
* Governor of New Hampshire: Henry B. Quinby (Republican) (until January 5), Robert P. Bass (Republican) (starting January 5)
* Governor of New Jersey: John Franklin Fort (Republican) (until January 17), Woodrow Wilson (Democratic) (starting January 17)
* Governor of New York: John Alden Dix (Democratic)
* Governor of North Carolina: William Walton Kitchin (Democratic)
* Governor of North Dakota: John Burke (Democratic)
* Governor of Ohio: Judson Harmon (Democratic)
* Governor of Oklahoma: Charles N. Haskell (Democratic) (until January 9), Lee Cruce (Democratic) (starting January 9)
* Governor of Oregon: Jay Bowerman (Republican) (until January 11), Oswald West (Democratic) (starting January 11)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: Edwin Sydney Stuart (Republican) (until January 17), John K. Tener (Republican) (starting January 17)
* Governor of Rhode Island: Aram J. Pothier (Republican)
* Governor of South Carolina: Martin Frederick Ansel (Democratic) (until January 17), Coleman Livingston Blease (Democratic) (starting January 17)
* Governor of South Dakota: Robert S. Vessey (Republican)
* Governor of Tennessee: Malcolm R. Patterson (Democratic) (until January 26), Ben W. Hooper (Republican) (starting January 26)
* Governor of Texas: Thomas Mitchell Campbell (Democratic) (until January 17), Oscar Branch Colquitt (Democratic) (starting January 17)
* Governor of Utah: William Spry (Republican)
* Governor of Vermont: John A. Mead (Republican)
* Governor of Virginia: William Hodges Mann (Democratic)
* Governor of Washington: Marion E. Hay (Republican)
* Governor of West Virginia: William E. Glasscock (Republican)
* Governor of Wisconsin: James O. Davidson (Republican) (until January 2), Francis E. McGovern (Republican) (starting January 2)
* Governor of Wyoming: Bryant B. Brooks (Republican) (until January 2), Joseph M. Carey (Democratic) (starting January 2)

Lieutenant Governors
* Lieutenant Governor of Alabama: Henry B. Gray (Democratic) (until January 17), Walter D. Seed Sr. (Democratic) (starting January 17)
* Lieutenant Governor of California: Warren R. Porter (Republican) (until January 3), A. J. Wallace (Republican) (starting January 3)
* Lieutenant Governor of Colorado: Stephen R. Fitzgarrald (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: vacant (until January 4), Dennis A. Blakeslee (Republican) (starting January 4)
* Lieutenant Governor of Delaware: John M. Mendinhall (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Idaho: Lewis H. Sweetser (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: John G. Oglesby (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Frank J. Hall (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: George W. Clarke (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: William James Fitzgerald (Republican) (until month and day unknown), Richard Joseph Hopkins (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: William Hopkinson Cox (Republican) (until December 12), Edward J. McDermott (Democratic) (starting December 12)
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Paul M. Lambremont (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Louis A. Frothingham (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Patrick H. Kelley (Republican) (until January 1), John Q. Ross (Republican) (starting January 1)
* Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: Edward Everett Smith (Republican) (until January 3), Samuel Y. Gordon (Republican) (starting January 3)
* Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Luther Manship (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Jacob Friedrich Gmelich (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Montana: William R. Allen (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska: Melville R. Hopewell (Republican) (until May 2), vacant (starting May 2)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: vacant (until January 2), Gilbert C. Ross (political party unknown) (starting January 2)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: Thomas F. Conway (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: William C. Newland (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota: Robert S. Lewis (Republican) (until month and day unknown), Usher L. Burdick (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Ohio:
	+ until January 9: Francis W. Treadway (Republican)
	+ January 9-March 3: Atlee Pomerene (Democratic)
	+ starting March 3: Hugh L. Nichols (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma: George W. Bellamy (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), J. J. McAlester (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania: Robert S. Murphy (Republican) (until January 17), John Merriman Reynolds (Republican) (starting January 17)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Zenas Work Bliss (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Thomas Gordon McLeod (Democratic) (until January 17), Charles Aurelius Smith (Democratic) (starting January 17)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota: Howard C. Shober (Republican) (until month and day unknown), Frank M. Byrne (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: William Kinney (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Nathaniel Baxter Jr. (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: Asbury Bascom Davidson (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Leighton P. Slack (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: James Taylor Ellyson (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Washington: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: John Strange (Republican) (until January 2), Thomas Morris (Republican) (starting January 2)

## Events

### January - March

* January 5 – The Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity is founded at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
* 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 airplane rescue at sea, saving the life of John McCurdy 10 miles from Havana, Cuba.
* January 31 – *The Masses* socialist magazine begins publication.
* March 1 – 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.
* 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 - September

* July 24 – Hiram Bingham rediscovers Machu Picchu.
* 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 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.

## Memoriam

* January 7 – William Hall Sherwood, pianist and music educator (aged 56; Chicago, IL, USA)
* January 9 – Edwin Arthur Jones, choral composer (aged 57; Stoughton, MA, USA)
* January 24 – David Graham Phillips, journalist and novelist, murdered (aged 43; New York City, NY, USA)
* February 1 – Charles Stillman Sperry, admiral (aged 63; Washington, DC, USA)
* February 7 – Hannah Whitall Smith, Quaker author (aged 79; England, UK)
* February 22 – Frances Harper, African American abolitionist, poet and author (aged 85; Philadelphia, PA, USA)
* March 4 – Ellen Maria Colfax, Second Lady of the United States (aged 74; South Bend, IN, USA)
* March 18 – David Moffat, financier (aged 71; New York City, NY, USA)
* April 13 – William Keith, landscape painter (aged 72; Berkeley, CA, USA)
* April 14
	+ George Cary Eggleston, memoirist (aged 71; New York City, NY, USA)
	+ Addie Joss, baseball player (aged 31; Toledo, OH, USA)
	+ Denman Thompson, actor and playwright (aged 77; West Swanzey, NH, USA)
* May 5
	+ James A. Bland, African American musician and songwriter (aged 56; Philadelphia, PA, USA)
	+ Halsey Ives, art teacher and curator (aged 63; London, England, UK)
* May 9 – Thomas Wentworth Higginson, writer, abolitionist and advocate of women's suffrage (aged 87; Cambridge, MA, USA)
* May 21 – Williamina Fleming, astronomer (aged 54; Boston, MA, USA)
* May 22 – Elizabeth Smith Miller, women's rights campaigner (aged 88; Geneva, NY, USA)
* May 30 – Milton Bradley, game pioneer and businessman (aged 74; Springfiled, MA, USA)
* June 9 – Carrie Nation, temperance activist (aged 64; Leavenworth, KS, USA)
* July 2 – Clement A. Evans, Confederate general (aged 78; Atlanta, GA, USA)
* July 24 – Thomas J. Latham, lawyer and businessman (aged 79; Memphis, TN, USA)
* August 1 – Samuel Arza Davenport, politician (aged 77; Erie, PA, USA)
* August 7 – Elizabeth Akers Allen, author, journalist and poet (aged 78; Tuckahoe, NY, USA)
* August 8 – William P. Frye, U.S. Senator from Maine from 1881 to 1911 (aged 80; Lewiston, ME, USA)
* August 11 – Verner Clarges, silent film actor (aged 65; New York City, NY, USA)
* August 26 – Alfred Bayliss, English-American educator (aged 64; Woodbine, IA, USA)
* September 9 – Francis March, lexicographer and philologist (aged 85; Easton, PA, USA)
* September 28 – Charles F. Manderson, U.S. Senator from Nebraska from 1883 to 1895 (aged 74; Liverpool, England, UK)
* October 2 – Winfield Scott Schley, admiral (aged 71; New York City, NY, USA)
* October 7 – Elmer McCurdy, robber, killed in shootout (aged 31; Osage Hills, OK, USA)
* October 9 – Jack Daniel, distiller and businessman (aged 62; Lynchburg, TN, USA)
* October 14 – John Marshall Harlan, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (aged 78; Washington, DC, USA)
* October 17 – Abram Williams, U.S. Senator from California from 1886 to 1887 (aged 79; San Francisco, CA, USA)
* October 19 – Eugene Burton Ely, aviation pioneer (aged 24; Macon, GA, USA)
* October 24 – Ida Lewis, lighthouse keeper (aged 69; Newport, RI, USA)
* October 29 – Joseph Pulitzer, newspaper publisher and journalist (aged 64; Charleston, SC, USA)
* October 31 – John Joseph Montgomery, glider pioneer (aged 53; San Jose, CA, USA)
* November 8 – Oscar Bielaski, Major League Baseball player (aged 64; Washington, DC, USA)
* November 15 – Philip Gengembre Hubert, architect (aged 81; CA, USA)
* December 2 – George Davidson, geodesist, astronomer, geographer, surveyor and engineer (aged 86; San Francisco, CA, USA)
* December 21 – Benjamin F. Jonas, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1879 to 1885 (aged 77; New Orleans, LA, USA)
* December 20 – Rose Eytinge, actress (aged 76; Amityville, NY, USA)
* December 25 – Arthur F. Griffith, calculating prodigy (aged 31; Springfield, MA, USA)