1891 in the United States

::Charles Frederick Crisp (D-Georgia) (starting December 8) - Congress: [51st](51st-united-states-congress) (until March 4), [52nd](52nd-united-states-congress) (starting March 4) #### State governments ::data[format=table] | Governors and lieutenant governors | |---| | | :: ## Events - January 2 – A. L. Drummond of New York is appointed Chief of the Treasury Secret Service. - January 5 – Henry B. Brown, of Michigan, is sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. - January 13 – In California, Leland Stanford (Rep.) re-elected Senator. - January 17 – George Bancroft dies at Washington DC at age 91, all government buildings flying flags lower to half mast until after the funeral. - January 20 – Jim Hogg becomes the first native Texan to be governor of that state. - January 27 – Mammoth Mine disaster - January 29 – Liliuokalani is proclaimed Queen of Hawaii. - March 3 - The International Copyright Act of 1891 is passed by the Fifty-first United States Congress. - The Ocean Mail Act of 1891 is passed by the Fifty-first United States Congress, providing subsidies to steamships for the carrying of mails between US and foreign ports. - Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, predecessor of Shoshone National Forest, in Wyoming is established as the first United States National Forest. - March 14 – In New Orleans, a lynch mob storms the Old Parish Prison and lynches 11 Italian Americans who had been found not guilty of the murder of Police Chief David Hennessy. - March 30 – Shoshone National Forest is established in Wyoming, the first U.S. National Forest. - April 1 – The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago. - May 5 – The Music Hall in New York (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as guest conductor. - May 20 – Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope is first displayed at Edison's Laboratory, for a convention of the National Federation of Women's Clubs. - June – *Profitable Advertising* was established in Boston - June 1 – The Johnstown Inclined Plane opens in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. - June 21 – First long-distance transmission of alternating current by the Ames power plant near Telluride, Colorado by Lucien and Paul Nunn. - September 23 – California Institute of Technology in California is founded. - October 1 – Stanford University in California opens its doors. - October 16 – White River National Forest is established in Colorado. - November 28 – The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is organized in St. Louis, Missouri. - December 17 – Drexel University is inaugurated as the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry in Philadelphia. ### Undated - Seattle University is established as the Immaculate Conception school. - Marie Owens becomes (probably) the first female police officer in the U.S., with the Chicago Police Department. - Jesse W. Reno invents the first working escalator, installed as an attraction at the Old Iron Pier, Coney Island, New York City. ### Ongoing - Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896) - Gay Nineties (1890–1899) - Progressive Era (1890s–1920s) - Garza Revolution in Texas and Mexico (1891–1893) ## Births ### January–June - January 1 – Charles Bickford, actor (died [1967](1967-in-the-united-states)) - January 2 – Charles P. Thompson, actor (died [1979](1979-in-the-united-states)) - January 7 – Zora Neale Hurston, Harlem Renaissance writer (died [1960](1960-in-the-united-states)) - January 25 – Wellman Braud, jazz bassist (died [1966](1966-in-the-united-states)) - January 28 – Bill Doak, baseball player (died [1954](1954-in-the-united-states)) - January 30 – Walter Beech, aviator and aircraft manufacturer (died [1950](1950-in-the-united-states)) - February 10 – Elliot Paul, writer (died [1958](1958-in-the-united-states)) - February 12 – Eugene Millikin, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1941 to 1957 (died [1958](1958-in-the-united-states)) - February 13 – Grant Wood, painter (died [1942](1942-in-the-united-states)) - February 15 – Henry J. Knauf, politician (died [1950](1950-in-the-united-states)) - March 10 – Sam Jaffe, actor (died [1984](1984-in-the-united-states)) - March 19 – Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States (died [1974](1974-in-the-united-states)) - March 26 – Will Wright, actor (died [1962](1962-in-the-united-states)) - April 13 – Nella Larsen, novelist (died [1964](1964-in-the-united-states)) - April 15 – Wallace Reid, actor (died [1923](1923-in-the-united-states)) - April 19 – W. Alton Jones, industrialist and philanthropist (died [1962](1962-in-the-united-states)) - April 26 – Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, mistress of Franklin D. Roosevelt (died [1948](1948-in-the-united-states)) - May 21 – John Peale Bishop, writer (died [1944](1944-in-the-united-states)) - May 22 – Eddie Edwards, jazz trombonist (died [1963](1963-in-the-united-states)) - May 24 – William F. Albright, archeologist and Biblical scholar (died [1971](1971-in-the-united-states)) - May 26 – - Maxwell Bodenheim, poet and novelist (murdered [1954](1954-in-the-united-states)) - Mamie Smith, African American blues singer (died [1946](1946-in-the-united-states)) - May 30 – Ben Bernie, bandleader (died [1943](1943-in-the-united-states)) - June 3 – Jim Tully, vagabond, pugilist and writer (died [1947](1947-in-the-united-states)) - June 8 – Audrey Munson, model and silent film actress (died [1996](1996-in-the-united-states)) - June 9 – Cole Porter, composer and songwriter (died [1964](1964-in-the-united-states)) - June 28 - Esther Forbes, historical fiction writer (died [1967](1967-in-the-united-states)) - Carl Panzram, serial killer and rapist (executed [1930](1930-in-the-united-states)) - June 30 – Man Mountain Dean, wrestler (died [1953](1953-in-the-united-states)) ### July–December - July 5 – John Howard Northrop, biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946 (suicide [1987](1987-in-the-united-states)) - July 10 – Edith Quimby, medical researcher and physicist (died [1982](1982-in-the-united-states)) - July 16 – Blossom Seeley, singer and vaudeville performer (died [1974](1974-in-the-united-states)) - July 18 – Billy Sullivan, actor (died [1946](1946-in-the-united-states)) - July 26 – William J. Connors, politician (died [1961](1961-in-the-united-states)) - August 1 – Edward Streeter, humorist (died [1976](1976-in-the-united-states)) - August 15 – Chief Yowlachie, Native American actor (died [1966](1966-in-the-united-states)) - August 29 – Joyce Hall, founder of Hallmark Cards (died [1982](1982-in-the-united-states)) - September 3 – Annie Elizabeth Delany, African American physician and author (died [1995](1995-in-the-united-states)) - September 28 – Myrtle Gonzalez, silent film actress (died [1918](1918-in-the-united-states)) - October 7 – Charles R. Chickering, illustrator (died [1970](1970-in-the-united-states)) - October 25 – Charles Coughlin, antisemitic radio host and Catholic priest (died [1979](1979-in-the-united-states)) - October 29 – Fanny Brice, actress, comedian and singer (died [1951](1951-in-the-united-states)) - November 2 – David Townsend, art director (died [1935](1935-in-the-united-states)) - November 7 – Miriam Cooper, silent film actress (died [1976](1976-in-the-united-states)) - November 10 – Carl Stalling, cartoon film composer (died [1972](1972-in-the-united-states)) - November 15 – Vincent Astor, philanthropist (died [1959](1959-in-the-united-states)) - November 20 – Leon Cadore, baseball pitcher (died [1958](1958-in-the-united-states)) - December 14 - Katherine MacDonald, silent film actress (died [1956](1956-in-the-united-states)) - Lester Melrose, record producer of the Chicago blues genre (died [1968](1968-in-the-united-states)) - December 26 – Henry Miller, novelist (died [1980](1980)) ## Deaths - January 5 – Emma Abbott, operatic soprano (born [1850](1850-in-the-united-states)) - January 17 – George Bancroft, historian (born [1800](1800-in-the-united-states)) - January 29 – William Windom, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1870 to 1881 and from 1881 to 1883 (born [1827](1827-in-the-united-states)) - February 14 – William Tecumseh Sherman, Civil War general (born [1820](1820-in-the-united-states)) - February 21 – James Timberlake, law enforcement officer (born [1846](1846-in-the-united-states)) - February 28 – George Hearst, U.S. Senator from California from 1887 to 1891 (born [1820](1820-in-the-united-states)) - March 6 - George M. Chilcott, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1882 to 1883 (born [1828](1828-in-the-united-states)) - Joshua Hill, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1871 to 1873 (born [1812](1812-in-the-united-states)) - March 21 – Joseph E. Johnston, Confederate Army general (born [1807](1807-in-the-united-states)) - April 2 – Albert Pike, Confederate military officer, attorney, writer and Freemason (born [1809](1809-in-the-united-states)) - April 7 – P. T. Barnum, showman, businessman, and politician (b. [1810](1810-in-the-united-states)) - April 14 – Annie Nowlin Savery, suffragist (born [1831 in the United Kingdom](1831-in-the-united-kingdom)) - June 9 – Henry Edwards, entomologist and actor (born [1827 in the United Kingdom](1827-in-the-united-kingdom)) - June 17 – Harrison Ludington, 13th Governor of Wisconsin from 1876 to 1878 (born 1812) - June 21 – Joseph E. McDonald, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1875 to 1881 (born [1819](1819-in-the-united-states)) - July 4 – Hannibal Hamlin, 15th vice president of the United States from 1861 to 1865 (born [1809](1809-in-the-united-states)) - August 5 – Thomas S. Bocock, U.S. Congressman, Speaker of the Confederate States House of Representatives (born [1815](1815-in-the-united-states)) - August 12 – James Russell Lowell, Romantic poet, critic, satirist, writer, diplomat and abolitionist (born [1819](1819-in-the-united-states)) - August 14 - John Henry Hopkins Jr., clergyman and hymnist (born [1820](1820-in-the-united-states)) - Sarah Childress Polk, First Lady of the U.S. (born [1803](1803-in-the-united-states)) - August 27 – Samuel C. Pomeroy, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1861 to 1873 (born [1816](1816-in-the-united-states)) - September 10 – Charles B. Clark, politician and entrepreneur (born [1844](1844-in-the-united-states)) - September 28 – Herman Melville, novelist, short story writer and poet (born [1819](1819-in-the-united-states)) - October 16 – Sarah Winnemucca, Northern Paiute author, activist and educator (born [1844](1844-in-the-united-states)) - November 6 – J. Gregory Smith, Vermont governor (born [1818](1818-in-the-united-states)) - November 17 – George H. Cooper, admiral (born [1821](1821-in-the-united-states)) - December 7 – Mary Crane, activist; mother of writer Stephen Crane (born [1827](1827-in-the-united-states)) - December 12 – Julia A. Ames, reformer (born [1861](1861-in-the-united-states)) - December 20 – Preston B. Plumb, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1877 to 1891 (born [1837](1837-in-the-united-states)) - December 29 – Marion McKinley Bovard, academic administrator, 1st president of the University of Southern California (born [1847](1847-in-the-united-states)) ::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1891_in_the_United_States) and is available under the [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the [article history page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1891_in_the_United_States?action=history). ::