1890 in the United States explained

Events from the year 1890 in the United States.

Incumbents

• President: Benjamin Harrison (R-Indiana)
• Vice President: Levi P. Morton (R-New York)
• Chief Justice: Melville Fuller (Illinois)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Thomas Brackett Reed (R-Maine)
• Congress: 51st

Demographics

See main article: 1890 United States census.

Events

January - June

• January - June period  - George W. Johnson becomes the first African American to record phonograph cylinders, in New York.
• January 2  - Alice Sanger becomes the first female staffer in the White House.^[1]
• January 22  - The United Mine Workers is founded.
• January 25  - Journalist Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.
• February 18  - National American Woman Suffrage Association established.^[2]
• February 24  - Chicago is selected to host the Columbian Exposition.
• March 2–7  - The Cherry Creek Campaign occurs in Arizona Territory.
• March 3  - The first American football game in Ohio State University history is played in Delaware, Ohio against Ohio Wesleyan University; Ohio State wins 20–14.
• March 8  - North Dakota State University is founded in Fargo, North Dakota.
• March 27  - A tornado strikes Louisville, Kentucky, killing 76 people and injuring 200.
• March 28  - Washington State University is founded in Pullman, Washington.
• May 2  - Oklahoma Territory is organized.
• May 31  - The 5-story skylight Cleveland Arcade opens in Cleveland, Ohio.
• June 1 – The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to record census returns using punched card input, a landmark in the history of computing hardware. Hollerith's company eventually becomes IBM.
• June 12  - On Lake Huron (Michigan), the wooden steamer Ryan is lost near Thunder Bay Island.^[3]
• June 20  - The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde published by Philadelphia-based Lippincott's Monthly Magazine.

July - December

• July 2  - The Sherman Antitrust Act becomes U.S. law.
• July 3  - Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state (see History of Idaho).
• July 10  - Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state (see History of Wyoming).
• August 4  - Thomas G. Jones is elected the 28th governor of Alabama defeating Benjamin M. Long.
• August 6  - At Auburn Prison in New York, William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed in the electric chair.
• September 19 – The University of North Texas is founded, as the Texas Normal College and Teacher Training Institute.
• September 24  - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Wilford Woodruff issues the "1890 Manifesto" officially advising against any future polygamy in the Church.
• September 25  - Sequoia National Park created.
• October 1  - Yosemite National Park created.
• October 11  - In Washington, D.C., the Daughters of the American Revolution is founded.^[4]
• October 13
  • The Delta Chi fraternity is founded by 11 law students at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
  • On Lake Huron, the schooner J. F. Warner is lost in Thunder Bay (Michigan).^[3]
• November 29  - In West Point, New York, the United States Navy defeats the United States Army 24–0 in the first Army–Navy football game.
• December 1  - Thomas G. Jones is sworn in as the 28th governor of Alabama replacing Thomas Seay.^[5]
• December 24  - The Oklahoma territorial legislature establishes three institutions of higher learning University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, and University of Central Oklahoma.
• December 29  - Wounded Knee Massacre: Near Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment tries to disarm a Native American camp and shooting starts. 153 Lakota Sioux and 25 troops are killed; about 150 flee the scene.

Undated

• The United States city of Boise, Idaho drills the first geothermal well.
• The corrugated cardboard box is invented by Robert Gair, a Brooklyn printer who developed production of paper-board boxes in 1879.
• The Demarest Building, a commercial building on Fifth Avenue in New York City, is completed as the first with an electric elevator (installed by Otis).
• The march "High School Cadets" is written by John Philip Sousa.
• Brown trout are introduced into the upper Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park.
• The Ohio Northern University Marching Band is founded as a part of the military department. Becoming known as the “Star of Northwest Ohio”, they will perform regularly each football season and travel across the world through their sponsoring university.^[6]

Ongoing

• Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
• Gay Nineties (1890–1899)
• Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)

Sport

• September 30 – The Brooklyn Bridegrooms clinch the National League pennant.

Births

• January 4  - Victor Adamson, Western film director, producer, screenwriter and actor (died 1972)
• January 21  - Wesley Englehorn, American football player (died 1993)
• January 22  - Fred M. Vinson, 13th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (died 1953)
• January 28  - Robert Franklin Stroud, "Birdman of Alcatraz" (died 1963)
• February 18
  • Edward Arnold, actor (died 1956)
  • Adolphe Menjou, film actor (died 1963)
• February 24  - Marjorie Main, character actress (died 1975)
• February 27
  • Freddie Keppard, jazz cornet player (died 1933)
  • Art Smith, pilot (died in aviation accident 1926)
• March 11  - Vannevar Bush, science administrator (died 1974)
• March 21  - C. Douglass Buck, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1943 to 1949 (died 1965)
• March 28  - Paul Whiteman, bandleader (died 1967)
• April 7
  • Marjory Stoneman Douglas, conservationist and writer (died 1998)
  • Harry W. Hill, admiral (died 1971)
• April 13  - Frank Murphy, politician and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (died 1949)
• April 23  - Adelbert Ford, psychologist (died 1976)^[7]
• May 1  - Laurence Wild, basketball player and 30th Governor of American Samoa (died 1971)
• May 11  - Woodall Rodgers, lawyer and politician, Mayor of Dallas (died 1961)
• May 15  - Katherine Anne Porter, author (died 1980)
• June 1  - Frank Morgan, character actor (died 1949)
• June 12  - Junius Matthews, actor (died 1978)
• June 26
  • Oscar C. Badger II, admiral (died 1958)
  • Jeanne Eagels, actress (died 1929)
• June 28  - William H. P. Blandy, admiral (d. 1954)
• June 30  - Gertrude McCoy, actress (d. 1967)
• July 22  - Rose Kennedy, philanthropist and matriarch of the Kennedy family (died 1995)
• July 26  - Daniel J. Callaghan, admiral (killed in action 1942)
• August 11  - Lillian Holley, sheriff (d. 1994)
• August 20  - H. P. Lovecraft, horror fiction author (died 1937)
• September 9  - Colonel Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (died 1980)
• September 20  - Jelly Roll Morton, jazz pianist, composer and bandleader (died 1941)
• September 24  - Allen J. Ellender, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1937 to 1972 (died 1972)
• October 1
  • Alice Joyce, silent film actress (died 1955)
  • Blanche Oelrichs, poet, second wife of John Barrymore (died 1950)
• October 2  - Groucho Marx, comedian (died 1977)
• October 8  - Eddie Rickenbacker, race car driver and World War I fighter pilot (died 1973)
• October 12  - Katherine Corri Harris, socialite and actress, first wife of John Barrymore (died 1927)
• October 13  - Conrad Richter, fiction writer (died 1968)
• October 14  - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961 (died 1969)
• October 20  - Sherman Minton, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1935 to 1941, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1956 (died 1965)
• October 25  - Floyd Bennett, aviator and explorer (died 1928)
• December 21  - Hermann Joseph Muller, geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1946 (died 1967)
• December 25  - Robert Ripley, collector of odd facts (died 1949)
• December 26  - Uncle Charlie Osborne, Appalachian fiddler (died 1992)

Deaths

• January 2  - George Henry Boker, poet and playwright (born 1823)
• January 28  - Prudence Crandall, educationist (born 1803)
• February 22  - John Jacob Astor III, businessman (born 1822)
• March 2  - James E. English, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1875 to 1876 (born 1812)
• March 19  - John S. Hager, U.S. Senator from California from 1873 to 1875 (born 1818)
• April 1  - David Wilber, politician (born 1820)
• April 19  - James Pollock, politician (born 1810)
• April 30  - Marcus Thrane, author, journalist, and the leader of the first labour movement in Norway (born 1817)
• May 3  - James B. Beck, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1877 to 1890 (born 1822 in Scotland)
• May 15  - Edward Doane, Protestant missionary in Micronesia (born 1820)
• June 11
  • George Edward Brett, publisher (born 1829)
  • Hugh Buchanan, politician from Georgia (born 1823)
• June 30  - Samuel Parkman Tuckerman, composer (born 1819)
• July 9  - Clinton B. Fisk, philanthropist and temperance activist (born 1828)
• July 10  - Thomas C. McCreery, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1868 to 1871 (born 1816)
• July 13  - John C. Frémont, soldier, explorer and U.S. Senator from California from 1850 to 1851 (born 1813)
• August 6  - William Kemmler, murderer, first person executed in the electric chair (born 1860)
• August 10  - John Boyle O'Reilly, poet, novelist, journalist and transportee (born 1844 in Ireland)
• September 8  - Isaac P. Christiancy, Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court and U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1875 to 1879 (born 1812)
• September 30  - Frederick H. Billings, lawyer and financier (born 1823)
• October 7  - John Hill Hewitt, songwriter (born 1801)
• October 8  - James W. Deaderick, Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1876 to 1886 (born 1812)
• October 20  - Alfred B. Mullett, architect (born 1834)
• November 7  - Comanche, horse, survivor of Custer's cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn
• December 15  - Sitting Bull, Native American chief (born c. 1831)
• Ann Leah Underhill, one of the Fox sisters, fraudulent medium (born 1814)

See also

• List of American films of the 1890s
• Timeline of United States history (1860–1899)

Notes and References

1. Web site: 1890. This Day in History. https://web.archive.org/web/20100209191324/http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=95. 2010-02-09. 2010-02-09.
2. Book: Catherine. Cocks. Historical Dictionary of the Progressive Era. 2009. Scarecrow Press. 978-0-8108-6293-7. Chronology. https://books.google.com/books?id=pvxD_LjXVRMC&pg=PR13. etal.
3. Web site: 2000 . Full List of Thunder Bay Region Shipwrecks (by name) . dead . http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20091015061300/http://web1.msue.msu.edu/iosco/tbfulllist.htm . 2009-10-15 . 2009-10-27 . MSU Sea Grant Extension, Northeast District, Michigan State University.
4. Web site: A Brief History of the Founding of the DAR. National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. 2009-10-27. https://web.archive.org/web/20091015031713/http://www.dar.org/natsociety/archives_founders.cfm. 2009-10-15. dead.
5. Ala. General Assembly. Journal of the Senate. 1890 - 1891 sess., 186, accessed July 28, 2023
6. Web site: ONU Marching Band.
7. Raphelson, A. C., (1968). Psychology at university of michigan. University of Michigan Flint College, 1(2), 71-71.