1918
St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church,The Hotel Commodore, and the Hotel Pennsylvania
opened in New York City.
Movies included A Dog’s Life by Charlie Chaplin, Fatty in Coney
Island by Mack Sennett, One Hundred Percent American starring
Mary Pickford, Prunella starring Marguerite Clark, and Tarzan of the Apes
starring Elmo Lincoln.
Fiction and verse of the year included Willa Cather’s My Antonia, Theodore
Dreiser’s Free and Other Stories, Zane Grey’s The U.P. Trail, Ring W. Lardner’s
Treat ‘Em Rough, The Red One by Jack London, Edith Wharton’s The Marne, Sherwood
Anderson’s Mid-American Chants, Edgar Lee Masters’s Towards the Gulf, and
Carl Sandburg’s Cornhuskers.
Popular songs included “Dream On, Little Soldier Boy” by Irving Berlin, “Everybody
Knows I Love Him” by Russell Smith, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Eddie
Green, “The Kaiser’s Got the Blues” by W.C. Handy, “Oh How I Hate To Get
Up In The Morning” by Irving Berlin and “When Alexander Takes His Ragtime
Band To France” by Alfred Bryan, Cliff Hess and Edgar Leslie.
Enrico Caruso recoded “Over There.”
The O. Henry Awards were created to honor the short-story writer.
The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded for drama.
There is a massive flu epidemic in America, declining the population for
the first time.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded.
The Raggedy Ann doll began being manufactured.
Air mail service began between Washington, D.C. and New York for 24 cents.
February 3: The New York Times began home
delivery.
March: James Joyce’s Ulysses began to
be serialized by the Little Review.
May 11: German was banned from being taught
in schools.
May 24: 284,114 women registered to vote.
September 18: Women were recruited for
farmwork.
September 28: A shuttle service between
Times square and Grand Central Station.
October 16: The Alien Act was passed by
Congress.
November 11: World War I ended.
150 tons of paper were cleared from streets in New York afterwards.