1870 in the United States explained
Events from the year 1870 in the United States.
Incumbents
Events
January–March
- January 1 - Plans for the Brooklyn Bridge are completed.
- January 3 - Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.
- January 10 - John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.
- January 15 - A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey ("A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly).
- January 26 - Reconstruction: Virginia rejoins the Union.
- January 27 - The first college sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, is established at DePauw University.
- February 2 - The Cardiff Giant is proven a hoax.
- February 3 - The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing African-American males the right to vote, is ratified.[1]
- February 9 - The Weather Bureau, later renamed the National Weather Service, is established.
- February 10
- February 12 - Women gain the right to vote in Utah Territory. On February 14, in a Salt Lake City municipal election, Seraph Young Ford becomes the first woman in the U.S. to cast her vote.
- February 23 - Military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.
- February 25 - Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.
- February 26
- March 19 - The Ohio Legislature passes the Cannon Act, thereby establishing the Ohio Agriculture and Mechanical College, later Ohio State University.
- March 24 - Syracuse University is established and officially opens.
- March 30
- March 31 - Thomas Mundy Peterson is the first African-American to vote in an election.
April–June
July–September
October–December
- October 25 - Eutaw riot: A white mob attacks a group of black citizens, killing as many as four of them, in Eutaw, Alabama.
- November 1 - The newly created Weather Bureau makes its first official meteorological forecast: "High winds at Chicago and Milwaukee... and along the Lakes".
- December 12 - Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina becomes the second black U.S. congressman (following Hiram Rhodes Revels in February).
Undated
Ongoing
- Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
- Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
Births
- January 9 - Joseph Strauss, bridge engineer (died 1938)
- January 11 - Alexander Stirling Calder, sculptor (died 1945)
- January 13 - Ross Granville Harrison, physiologist (died 1959)
- January 23 - William G. Morgan, inventor of volleyball (died 1942)
- February 20 - Jay Johnson Morrow, military engineer and politician, 3rd Governor of the Panama Canal Zone (died 1937)
- February 26 - John S. Cohen, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1932 to 1933 (died 1935)
- March 5 - Frank Norris, journalist and naturalist novelist (died 1902)
- March 13
- April 4
- April 17 - Ray Stannard Baker, journalist and modern historian (died 1946)
- May - Bert Wakefield, Negro leagues baseball player[3]
- May 19 - Albert Fish, serial killer (died 1936)
- May 24 - Benjamin N. Cardozo, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (died 1938)
- July 9 - Mathew Beard, supercentenarian (died 1985)
- July 17 - Marie Louise Obenauer, labor laws pioneer (died 1947)
- July 25 - Maxfield Parrish, illustrator (died 1966)
- August 3 - Carrie Ingalls, younger sister of author Laura Ingalls Wilder (died 1946)
- August 14 - Nelson McDowell, actor (died 1947)
- August 20 - Edward Stanley Kellogg, 16th Governor of American Samoa (died 1948)
- August 25 - Mihran Kassabian, radiologist (died 1910)
- September 2 - James Bert Garner, chemical engineer and inventor (died 1960)
- September 21 - Elmer Darwin Ball, entomologist (died 1943)
- September 25 - James A. Hawken, schoolteacher (died 1964)
- September 30 - Thomas W. Lamont, banker (died 1948)
- October 7 - Uncle Dave Macon, banjo player and singer-songwriter (died 1952)
- November 2 - Joseph J. Sullivan, gambler (died 1949)
- December 12 - Walter Benona Sharp, oil pioneer (died 1912)
- December 23 - John Marin, modernist painter (died 1953)
- Robert Ames Bennet, Western and science fiction writer (died 1954)
- Zella de Milhau, artist, ambulance driver, community organizer and motorcycle policewoman (b. 1954)[4]
Deaths
- January 17 - Alexander Anderson, illustrator (born 1775)
- January 25 - David Bates, poet (born 1809)
- March 26 - Pierre Soulé, U.S. Senator from Louisiana in 1847 and from 1849 to 1853 (born 1801)
- March 28 - George Henry Thomas, general (born 1816)
- April 15 - Emma Willard, women's rights activist and educationalist (born 1787)
- April 26 - Zerah Colburn, locomotive designer and technical journalist (suicide) (born 1832)
- May 9 - Lawrence Brainerd, U.S. Senator from Vermont from 1854 to 1855 (born 1794)
- June 11 - William Gilmore Simms, Southern poet, novelist and historian (born 1806)
- June 17 - Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte, agriculturalist, nephew of Napoleon I (born 1805 in the United Kingdom)
- July 13 - Daniel Sheldon Norton, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1865 to 1870 (born 1829)
- June 27 - Cyrus Kingsbury, Congregationalist missionary to Cherokee and Choctaw tribes (died in Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory)
- August 14 - David Farragut, flag officer of the United States Navy during the American Civil War (born 1801)
- September 12 - Fitz Hugh Ludlow, author and explorer (born 1836)
- October 3 - Joseph Mozier, sculptor best known for his work in Italy (born 1812)
- October 12
- Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch, minister and hymn writer (born 1809)
- Robert E. Lee, General of the Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War (born 1807)
- November 24 - John Christian Jacobson, Moravian bishop[5]
- December 5 - David Gouverneur Burnet, politician (born 1788)
- December 16 - Byron Kilbourn, surveyor, railroad executive and politician (born 1801)
- December 28 - Wilson Lumpkin, U.S. Senator from Georgia and Governor of Georgia from 1831 to 1835 (born 1783)
See also
Notes and References
- Web site: 15th Amendment to the Constitution: Primary Documents of American History (Virtual Programs & Services, Library of Congress). www.loc.gov. 2016-02-02.
- Web site: A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875. memory.loc.gov. 2016-02-02.
- https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1Wcncq5-bHdekRpdFJreUNabDg "Unions Win Again"
- Web site: Zella de Milhau Smithsonian American Art Museum . americanart.si.edu . 15 March 2021.
- Web site: Jacobson, John Christian . Dictionary of North Carolina Biography . Charlotte Bennett . 1988 . December 25, 2015.
