Which American composer was dubbed the "King of Ragtime"?

Ragtime is a musical style that enjoyed its peak popularity between 1895 and 1918. During his brief career, Scott Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has inspired other ragtime composers with its melody lines, harmonic progressions or metric patterns.