The 1910s Arts and Entertainment: Chronology

1910:     February 28 Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova makes her American debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

1910:     March 28 The first one-man show by artist Pablo Picasso opens at the 291 Gallery in New York City.

1910:     November 3 The Chicago Grand Opera opens with a production of Aida, by Giuseppe Verdi.

1911:      Irving Berlin composes "Alexander's Ragtime Band," the song that popularized ragtime music.

1911:     May 23 President William Howard Taft dedicates the New York Public Library.

1911:     August 8 Pathe's Weekly, the first regular newsreel to be produced in the United States, is released to motion picture theaters.

1911:     December 19 The Association of American Painters and Sculptors is founded.

1912:     August Photographer and editor Alfred Stieglitz devotes an entire issue of his periodical Camera Work to the modern art movement.

1912:     October 31 The Musketeers of Pig Alley, a film by D. W. Griffith that points out the social evils of poverty and crime on the streets of New York, is released.

1912:     December 10 The Famous Players Film Company registers for copyright the five-reel feature film The Count of Monte Cristo, directed by Edwin S. Porter, with James O'Neill recreating his famous stage role.

1913:      The Jesse Lasky Feature Play Company, which later would become Paramount Pictures, is established in Hollywood, California.

1913:     February 17 The International Exhibition of Modern Art, known as The Armory Show, opens in New York City. It is the first opportunity for many Americans to view modern art.

1913:     March 24 The million dollar, eighteen-hundred-seat Palace Theatre opens in New York City.

1914:     February 13 The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), an organization that seeks royalty payments for public performances of music, is founded in New York City.

1914:     March Comedian Charles Chaplin begins to develop the legendary character of the Little Tramp in the film Mabel's Strange Predicament.

1914:     November 3 The first American exhibition of African sculpture opens at the 291 Gallery in New York City.

1914:     December 3 The Isadorables, six European dancers trained by American dancer Isadora Duncan, perform at Carnegie Hall after escaping with her from war-torn Europe.

1915:      Modern dancers Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn found the Denishawn School of Dancing in Los Angeles.

1915:     March 10 The Russian Symphony Orchestra plays the American debut performance of the symphony Prometheus by Aleksandr Scriabin at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Color images are projected onto a screen as part of the show.

1916:      Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst inaugurates the City Life arts section as a supplement to his Sunday newspapers.

1916:     November Inventor and radio pioneer Lee De Forest begins to transmit daily music broadcasts from his home in New York City.

1917:      Showman George M. Cohan composes the song that was a musical call-to-arms during World War I: "Over There."

1917:      Motion picture pioneer Cecil B. DeMille directs The Little American, a patriotic melodrama starring Mary Pickford.

1917:     October 27 Sixteen-year-old Russian-born violinist Jascha Heifetz makes his debut American performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

1918:      The annual O. Henry Awards are inaugurated in honor of the short story writer O. Henry (pseudonym for William Sydney Porter).

1918:     December The Theatre Guild is founded in New York City.

1919:      Maid of Harlem, an all-black-cast musical starring "Fats" Waller, Mamie Smith, Johnny Dunn, and Perry Bradford, draws enthusiastic crowds at the Lincoln Theatre in New York City.

1919:     February 5 United Artists, an independent film distribution company, is founded by Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, D. W. Griffith, and Mary Pickford.