1908 in the United States

Events from the year 1908 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government">Federal government of the United States">Federal government

Events

January

January 1
*A ball signifying New Year's Day drops in New York City's Times Square for the first time.
*Gustav Mahler makes his US conducting debut at the Metropolitan Opera.
*Georgia introduces a law prohibiting alcohol.
January 13 – A fire at the Rhoads Opera House in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, kills 170 people. The tragedy is a catalyst for stricter fire safety laws nationwide.
January 15 – The Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority is established.
January 21 – New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for people who control public places to allow women to smoke in them. It is vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr.

February

February – The Converse Rubber Shoe Company is formed in Malden, Massachusetts.
February 12
*The first [1908 New York (state)|New York to Paris Race|around-the-world car race], begins in New York City.
*Division of Militia Affairs with the War Department.
February 18 – Japanese immigration to the United States is restricted under the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907.
February 25 – The Bible Institute of Los Angeles is founded.
February 27 – A forty-sixth star is added to the United States flag representing the state of Oklahoma.
February 29 – The State Normal and Industrial School for Women, precursor to James Madison University, is founded in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

March

March 4 – The Collinwood School Fire, near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people.
March 26 – The US Thomas Flyer car sails for Alaska at the head of a motor race from New York to Paris.

April

April 8 – Harvard University votes to establish the Harvard Business School.
April 14 – The first Hauser Dam in Montana fails, causing severe flooding and damage downstream.
April 16 – Natural Bridges National Monument is established
April 19 – The Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago, designed by Jens Jensen, opens to the public for the first time.
April 24 – The seventh deadliest tornado in U.S. history strikes the towns of Amite, Louisiana, Pine, Louisiana and Purvis, Mississippi, killing 143 and injuring 770.

May

May 10 – Mother's Day is observed for the first time, at Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia.

June

June 20 – The Georgia Tech Alumni Association is chartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

July

July 1 – Carson National Forest is established.
July 11 – The Western University of Pennsylvania is renamed the University of Pittsburgh.
July 22 – The automobile manufacturing company Fisher Body is founded.
July 25 – John Baxter Taylor, graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, becomes the first African American to win an Olympic Gold Medal at the London Summer Olympics
July 26 – Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to staff the Office of the Chief Examiner immediately.

August

August 8 – The Hoover Company of Canton, Ohio, acquires manufacturing rights to the upright portable vacuum cleaner patented on June 22 by James M. Spangler.
August 14 – Springfield Race Riot of 1908 in Springfield, Illinois.
August 31 – A charter is granted for Wayland Literary and Technical Institute in Plainview, Texas, later Wayland Baptist University.

September

September 16 – William C. Durant founds the company which eventually becomes General Motors.
September 17 – At Fort Myer, Virginia, U.S.A. Thomas Selfridge becomes the first person to die in an airplane crash. The pilot, Orville Wright, is severely injured in the crash, but makes a recovery.
September 28 – Classes commence at Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts, established under the terms of Franklin's will.

October

October 1
* Official launch of Henry Ford's Ford Model T automobile, the first having left the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit, Michigan, on September 27. The initial price is set at $850.
* Penny Post is established between the United Kingdom and United States.
October 5 – The Melting Pot, a play by Israel Zangwill, opens in Washington, D.C. The title quickly becomes a widely used symbol for assimilation of immigrants to the United States.
October 8 – The University of Omaha, precursor of the University of Nebraska Omaha, is founded as a private non-sectarian college.
October 10 – First section of Long Island Motor Parkway opened.
October 13 – The Church of the Nazarene is organized officially at Pilot Point, Texas as the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene. This is the official "birthday" of the denomination.
October 14 – The Chicago Cubs win the 1908 World Series defeating the Detroit Tigers in Game 5. They would not win again until November 2, 2016, which stands as the longest championship drought in sports history.
October 15 – The Metz Fire in Metz Township, Michigan; 37 people are killed, 134 families—about 700 people— are made homeless.

November

November 3 – 1908 United States presidential election: Republican William Howard Taft defeats Democrat William Jennings Bryan.
November 24 – The first credit union in the United States begins operation in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Undated

The American Temperance University closes.

Ongoing

Births

January – March

January 1 – Bill Tapia, musician
January 11 – Lionel Stander, actor
January 14 – Russ Columbo, singer, bandleader, and composer
January 17 – Cus D'Amato, boxing trainer
January 20 – Fleur Cowles, painter and editor
January 27 – Oran "Hot Lips" Page, Jazz musician
February 2 – Justice M. Chambers, Medal of Honor recipient
February 5 – Edith Ceccarelli, supercentenarian
February 6
* Russell Gleason, actor
* Michael Maltese, screenwriter
February 10 – Charles Henri Ford, novelist, poet, filmmaker, photographer and collage artist
February 13 – Pauline Frederick, journalist
February 17 – Red Barber, baseball announcer and sports journalist
February 25 – George Duning, film composer
February 26 – Tex Avery, Cartoonist
February 29 – Dee Brown, writer and historian
March 4 – T.R.M. Howard, African-American civil rights leader and surgeon
March 5 – Irving Fiske, American playwright, WPA writer and speaker; co-created Quarry Hill Creative Center in Rochester, Vermont, early children's rights activist; died 1990)
March 13 – Walter Annenberg, Publisher and philanthropist
March 14 – Ed Heinemann, aircraft designer
March 20
* Kermit Murdock, actor
* Frank Stanton, businessman
March 22 – Louis L'Amour, author
March 26 – Henry (Hank) Sylvern, Radio personality
March 29 – Arthur O'Connell, Actor

April – June

April 1 – Abraham Maslow, psychologist
April 2 – Buddy Ebsen, actor and dancer
April 4
* Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, author
* Frances Ford Seymour, socialite
April 5 – Bette Davis, actress
April 6 – John P. Davies, diplomat
April 15 – eden ahbez, musician
April 20 – Lionel Hampton, African-American musician and bandleader
April 25 – Edward R. Murrow, journalist
April 26 – Fred Phillips, make-up artist
April 29 – Jack Williamson, science fiction author
May 3 – Howard Cary, American engineer & founder of Cary Instruments
May 10 – Helen Elsie Austin, American attorney
May 20 – James Stewart, actor
May 23
* Max Abramovitz, architect
* John Bardeen, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
May 25 – Theodore Roethke, poet
May 30 – Mel Blanc, voice actor
May 31 – Don Ameche, actor
June 13 – Marjorie F. Lambert, archaeologist & anthropologist
June 18 – Bud Collyer, voice actor and game show host
June 20 – Billy Werber, baseball player
June 21
* William Frankena, moral philosopher
* Marjorie Gladman, tennis player
June 23 – Karl Warner, athlete
June 25
* Joe Becker, baseball player
* Willard Van Orman Quine, philosopher
June 26 – William F. Knowland, United States Senator from California from 1945 till 1959. Politician and newspaperman
June 27
* Bill Kennedy, actor
* Charles Stevenson, philosopher
June 29
* Leroy Anderson, composer
* Sally Haley, painter
June 30 – Eunice Norton, pianist

July – September

July 1 – Alvino Rey, swing era musician and bandleader
July 3 – M. F. K. Fisher, food writer
July 5
* Lyman S. Ayres II, businessman
* Don Dunphy, television and radio sports announcer
July 8 – Nelson A. Rockefeller, 49th governor of New York from 1959 to 1973 and 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977
July 12 – Milton Berle, comedian
July 19 – Daniel Fry, contactee
July 21
* William E. Jenner, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1947 to 1959
* Jug McSpaden, professional golfer
* Magruder Tuttle, rear admiral, football player
July 22 – Claire Falkenstein, sculptor, painter, printmaker, jewelry designer and teacher
July 23
*Karl Swenson, actor
*James C. Tison Jr., admiral and civil engineer
July 25 – Kathryn Eames, actress
July 27 – Joseph Mitchell, writer
July 31 – Bill Shadel, Radio and TV news anchor
August 2 – Al Alquist, California politician
August 9 – A. I. Bezzerides, screenwriter
August 10 – Claude Thornhill, pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader
August 16
* Orlando Cole, classical cellist and educator
* William Maxwell, novelist and editor ** Miriam Rosen Minsker, centenarian
August 20 – Al López, baseball player and manager
August 21 – Tom Tully, actor
August 27 – Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969, 37th vice president of the United States from 1961 to 1963
August 28 – Roger Tory Peterson, naturalist, artist and educator
August 30 – Fred MacMurray, actor
August 31 – William Saroyan, fiction writer
September 2
* Ruth Bancroft, landscape and garden designer
* Dorothea Leighton, social psychiatrist
September 4 – Richard Wright, African-American author
September 6 – Korczak Ziolkowski, sculptor
September 7
* Paul Brown, football coach
* Michael E. DeBakey, surgeon and medical researcher
September 10 – Raymond Scott, composer, bandleader, electronic music pioneer
September 13 – Mae Questel, actress
September 15 – Penny Singleton, actress
September 16 – Neil Reagan, radio station manager, and CBS senior producer
September 29 – Eddie Tolan, athlete

October – December

October 6 – Carole Lombard, film actress
October 9 – Lee Wiley, jazz singer
October 14 – Ruth Hale, playwright and actress
October 15 – Herman Chittison, pianist
October 20
* Geraldine Branch, gynecologist
* Carl Stuart Hamblen, musician and presidential candidate
October 22 – John Gould, humorist, essayist and columnist
October 25 – Polly Ann Young, actress
October 27 – Lee Krasner, American painter
November 1 – Felix Knight, actor, tenor, and vocal coach
November 8 – Martha Gellhorn, war correspondent
November 12 – Harry Blackmun, judge
November 14 – Joseph McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin
November 18 – Imogene Coca, actress
November 20 – Alistair Cooke, English-born journalist
November 23 – Nelson S. Bond, science fiction writer
November 28 – Mary Oppen, activist, artist, photographer and writer
November 29 – Adam Clayton Powell Jr., politician
December 3 – Edward Underdown, actor
December 4 – Alfred Hershey, bacteriologist, Nobel Prize laureate
December 6 – Baby Face Nelson, bank robber
December 7 – Slim Bryant, country music singer, songwriter and guitarist
December 11 – Elliott Carter, composer
December 14 – Morey Amsterdam, actor and comedian
December 16 – Frances Day, actress and singer
December 17 – Willard Libby, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
December 21 – Herbert Hutner, banker and lawyer
December 23 – Sol Carter, baseball player

Deaths

February 1 – Sara Iredell Fleetwood, African-American nurse and teacher
February 21 – Harriet Hosmer, neoclassical sculptor, first female professional sculptor
March 25 – Durham Stevens, diplomat
March 26 – Louis Chauvin, ragtime pianist
March 27 – Charles N. Sims, Methodist preacher, third chancellor of Syracuse University
April 19 – Simon B. Conover, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1873 to 1879
April 20 – Henry Chadwick, English-born baseball writer and historian
May 14 – John O'Connell, baseball player
June 1 – James Kimbrough Jones, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1885 to 1903
June 9 – Drusilla Wilson, American temperance leader and Quaker pastor
June 13 – Henry Lomb, German-American optician, co-founder of Bausch & Lomb
June 14 – Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby, founder of the Stanley Cup
June 24 – Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897
July 3 – Joel Chandler Harris, author
July 10 – Phoebe Knapp, hymn composer
July 29 – Estelle M. H. Merrill, journalist
August 4 – William B. Allison, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1873 to 1908
August 26 – Tony Pastor, vaudeville and theater impresario
September 17 – Thomas Selfridge, army officer & first aviation casualty
October 30 – Caroline Astor, socialite
November 7 – Butch Cassidy, train and bank robber
December 9 – William Harvey Carney, first African American to receive the Medal of Honor
December 13 – Augustus Le Plongeon, photographer and antiquarian
Jacob W. Davis, Latvian-born tailor, inventor of jeans