A JOURNEY THROUGH THE HERITAGE AUCTIONS ARCHIVES REVEALS WHAT THE WORLD WAS WATCHING, READING, AND APPRECIATING IN A PIVOTAL YEAR MARKED BY GLOBAL CONFLICT
By Rhonda Reinhart | February 3, 2026
While 1914 might be remembered most for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the beginning of World War I, the year was also notable for its remarkable progress. It was the year Charlie Chaplin made his film debut, laying the foundation for a new era in cinema, and the year T.S. Eliot arrived in England, beginning a journey that would reshape modern poetry. 1914 also saw the official opening of the Panama Canal, as well as the world’s first electric traffic light, installed that summer in Cleveland, Ohio. Below, we look back at other key moments in sports, literature, art, and more in a year defined by seismic shifts and lasting influence.
BOOKS
First published in 1912 in the pulp magazine The All-Story, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes came out in book form in 1914, becoming the first of his many novels to be published in hardcover. This copy, a first edition and first printing of what many consider Burroughs’ greatest and most enduring literary creation, features the original illustrated dust jacket by Fred J. Arting. The copy realized $60,000 in an October 2021 Heritage auction.
AMERICAN ART
Thomas Moran earned acclaim for his vast landscapes of the American West, which helped inspire the creation of the National Park System. His 1914 masterwork Mountain Lion in Grand Canyon (Lair of the Mountain Lion) is one such creation and stands as one of the artist’s greatest late works. In 1915, the calendar publisher Osborne & Co. reproduced Mountain Lion in Grand Canyon as a large-scale color print, purchasing the painting and copyright for $1,100. In a December 2020 Heritage auction, the original painting sold for $471,000.
SPORTS
Babe Ruth made his Major League Baseball debut in July 1914, pitching for the Boston Red Sox. But before that, he was a star player for the minor-league Baltimore Orioles. Ruth signed with his hometown team earlier that year before his swift transition to the big leagues. While playing for the Orioles, Ruth got his first baseball card: this 1914 Baltimore News rookie card that sold for $4,026,000 in an October 2025 Heritage auction and was previously displayed at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore. In addition to being the first card of baseball’s first superstar, it is also one of the rarest cards of any issued during Ruth’s career. Only 10 such specimens reside in the census of any grading service.
MOVIES
Released in February 1914, The Squaw Man holds a special place in the history of cinema. While earlier shorts may have been filmed in Hollywood, the silent Western is widely considered the first feature-length film produced in the town that would become synonymous with the motion picture business. Not only did The Squaw Man launch the career of Cecil B. DeMille, but it also established Hollywood as the epicenter of the burgeoning new industry. The historic Pathé camera DeMille used on the film, which remained in his possession for the duration of his life, realized $50,000 in a July 2025 Heritage auction.
U.S. COINS
The Philadelphia Mint struck just 125 proof Indian half eagles in 1914, a slight increase over the previous year. The proofs were delivered in two batches, with 50 coins delivered on September 28 and the remaining 75 pieces on December 11. Today the surviving population of 1914 proofs is estimated at 65 to 75 examples in all grades. This specimen, widely regarded as the second-finest known example of the rare proof gold issue, realized $144,000 in a January 2025 Heritage auction.
ILLUSTRATION ART
A principal figure during the Golden Age of Illustration, Joseph Christian Leyendecker created more than 300 covers for The Saturday Evening Post, revolutionizing modern magazine design in the process. Leyendecker was also known for his poignant, whimsical works capturing the antics of children. Beat-up Boy, Football Hero, which graced the November 21, 1914, cover of The Saturday Evening Post, typifies Leyendecker’s masterful ability to tell a story using a solitary figure as his subject — in this case a precocious young boy beat up after a game of football and rendered in Leyendecker’s distinctive staccato painting style. The oil-on-canvas work sold for $4,121,250 in a May 2021 Heritage auction.
DESIGN
While most of Tiffany Studios’ mosaic works appeared in ecclesiastical and public spaces, the firm increasingly applied the medium to domestic spaces and luxury wares. The firm’s commissions for Marshall Field & Co. in Chicago served as the ultimate advertisements for these products. In 1914, the department store commissioned Tiffany Studios to appoint the Men’s Grill in the newly created Store for Men. The firm contributed a massive 40-by-50-foot leaded glass dome above a lavish central fountain, as well as 64 mosaic panels set into mahogany columns around the perimeter. The panels, six of which sold for $57,500 in a September 2022 Heritage auction, depict signs of the zodiac skillfully executed in Favrile glass.
ANIMATION ART
Winsor McCay’s landmark animated short Gertie the Dinosaur premiered February 8, 1914, at the Palace Theater in Chicago. Gertie, the subject of McCay’s third cartoon, was animation’s first superstar. In 1991, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry and is ranked No. 6 in The 50 Greatest Cartoons by cartoon historian Jerry Beck. This outstanding piece of inked artwork from the film, hand-drawn on rice paper by McCay, realized $33,600 in a December 2020 Heritage auction.
