1860–1869
1870–1879
1880–1889
1890–1899
1900–1909
1910–1919
1920–1929
1930–1939
1940–1949
1950–1959

Historical Timeline

American History | African American History
Baseball History | Negro Leagues Baseball History

1910–1919
1910
Angel Island opens as the immigration and quarantine spot for incoming people from Asia.
1910
W.E.B. DuBois edits the NAACP’s monthly publication, The Crisis.
1910
A Black Cuban team, the Havana Stars, tie the Detroit Tigers in a six game series. Commissioner Landis outlaws Major League teams from playing black teams for fear of embarrassment. Games continue to be played, but only as All Star exhibitions.
1910
35,000 black churches and 100 African American colleges scatter the country.
1911
Andrew "Rube" Foster, considered the "Founder of Black Baseball" forms the Chicago American Giants.
1911
Tiger great Ty Cobb hits for his second of three seasons over .400, producing his career high .420 average.
1911
John Henry Lloyd, Honus Wagner’s choice as "best ever," moves to the New York Lincoln Giants and bats .475.
1912
Native American Jim Thorpe wins gold in the pentathlon and decathlon at the Olympics in Stockholm. His medals are taken away because he had played semi-professional baseball. It is not until 1983, thirty years after he dies, when his medals are restored.
1912
The United States defeats host Sweden in the first Olympic Baseball competition 13-3.
1912
The theaters in New York City are desegregated.
1914
World War I commences. Gandhi begins his nonviolent campaign against Britain in India.
1914
George Washington Carver revives the Southern economy by finding many uses for the peanut.
1915
The Ku Klux Klan is revived in Georgia.
1915
D.W. Griffith films the first national blockbuster, Birth of a Nation. It was originally titled and written from an explicitly racist play The Clansman. Activist William Monroe Trotter had protested the play five years before.
1915
Guinn v. United States declares the "grandfather clause" unconstitutional, the 1st important victory of the NAACP.
1915
Pitching great John Donaldson strikes out 30 batters in an 18 inning game, improving his season total to more than 500.
1916
Jeanette Rankin becomes first Congresswoman. Women still cannot vote.
1916
Marcus Garvey arrives in New York and forms the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
1916
Jimmy Claxton joins the Pacific Coast League, then is fired when his African American heritage is discovered.
1917
Riots in East St. Louis and Houston raise racial tension across the country. In Houston, after the police beat an African American soldier, 100 African American soldiers are charged with riot, 13 are executed and others are given life imprisonment. The last prisoner is released in 1938.
1917
Madame C.J. Walker becomes the first self-made woman millionaire, regardless of race.
1918
World War I ends, totaling over 6 million deaths and 20 million wounded.
1918
The Star-Spangled Banner is first sung at a baseball game.
1919
The 18th Amendment, outlawing the production, distribution and consumption of alcohol, begins the Prohibition Era.
1919
“Red Summer” race riots erupt across 29 cities. In Chicago, 38 are killed and over 500 people are injured.
1919
Chicago White Sox team drops World Series but is remembered as the Black Sox for the gambling scandal.
1919
William Trotter fails in his attempt to convince the Paris Peace Convention to add laws against racial discrimination to the treaty to end World War I.