List of Famous people who died in 1915

Leo Max Frank was an American factory superintendent who was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia. His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national attention. His lynching two years later, in response to the commutation of his death sentence, became the focus of social, regional, political, and racial concerns, particularly regarding antisemitism. Today, the consensus of researchers is that Frank was wrongly convicted and Jim Conley was likely the actual murderer.

Béla Kiss was a Hungarian serial killer. He is thought to have murdered at least 23 young women and one man, and attempted to pickle their bodies in large metal drums that he kept on his property.

Clara Helene Immerwahr was a German chemist. She was the first German woman to be awarded a doctorate in chemistry in Germany, and is credited with being a pacifist as well as a women's rights activist. From 1901 until her suicide in 1915, she was married to the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Fritz Haber.

Joe Hill, born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund and also known as Joseph Hillström, was a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World. A native Swedish speaker, he learned English during the early 1900s, while working various jobs from New York to San Francisco. Hill, an immigrant worker frequently facing unemployment and underemployment, became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union. His most famous songs include "The Preacher and the Slave", "The Tramp", "There Is Power in a Union", "The Rebel Girl", and "Casey Jones—the Union Scab", which express the harsh and combative life of itinerant workers, and call for workers to organize their efforts to improve working conditions.

Billy Kersands was an African-American comedian and dancer. He was the most popular black comedian of his day, best known for his work in blackface minstrelsy. In addition to his skillful acrobatics, dancing, singing, and instrument playing, Kersands was renowned for his comic routines involving his large mouth, which he could contort comically or fill with objects such as billiard balls or saucers. His stage persona was that of the dim-witted black man of the type that had been popularized in white minstrel shows. Modern commentators such as Mel Watkins cite him as one of the earliest black entertainers to have faced the dilemma of striking a balance between social satire and the reinforcement of negative stereotypes.

John Bunny was an American actor. Bunny began his career as a stage actor, but transitioned to a film career after joining Vitagraph Studios around 1910. At Vitagraph, Bunny made over 150 short films – many of them domestic comedies with the comedian Flora Finch – and became one of the most well-known actors of his era.

Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa was an Irish Fenian leader and member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Yang Shoujing was a late-Qing dynasty historical geographer, calligrapher, antiquarian, bibliophile, and diplomat. He is best known for the historical atlas Lidai yudi tu, commonly called the Yangtu, the most complete and scholarly historical atlas of China produced during the Qing dynasty. He devoted most of his life to the annotation of the 6th-century geographic work Shui jing zhu, which was completed by his disciple Xiong Huizhen and published as the Shui jing zhu shu.

James Keir Hardie was a Scottish trade unionist and politician. He was a founder of the Labour Party, and served as its first parliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908.

Emma Nutt became the world's first female telephone operator on September 1, 1878, when she started working for the Edwin Holmes Telephone Despatch [sic] Company in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.