1874 in the United States
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Events from the year 1874 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
- President: Ulysses S. Grant (R-Illinois)
- Vice President: Henry Wilson (R-Massachusetts)
- Chief Justice: Morrison Waite (Ohio) (starting March 4)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: James G. Blaine (R-Maine)
- Congress: 43rd
State governments
Events
- January 1 â New York City annexes The Bronx.
- February 21 â The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first newspaper.
- March 18 â Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trading rights.[1]
- March â The Young Men's Hebrew Association in Manhattan (which still operates today as the 92nd Street Y) is founded.
- May 16 â The Mill River dam collapses in Massachusetts, killing 139 people.
- July 1
- Philadelphia Zoo opens, the first public zoo in the U.S.
- Four-year-old Charley Ross, America's first major kidnapping for ransom victim, is taken from his home in Philadelphia.
- The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, with cylindrical platen and QWERTY keyboard, is first marketed.
- November 4 â Democrats regain the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time since 1860.
- November 7 â Harper's Weekly publishes a political cartoon by Thomas Nast considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the Republican Party.[2]
- November 9 â The Sigma Kappa sorority is founded at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, by Mary Caffrey Low, Elizabeth Gorham Hoag, Ida Fuller, Frances Mann, and Louise Helen Coburn.
- November 11 â The Gamma Phi Beta sorority is founded at Syracuse University. This is the first women's Greek letter organization to be called a sorority.
- November 24 â Inventor Joseph Glidden patents barbed wire.
- November 25 â The United States Greenback Party is established as a "National Independent" political party, composed primarily of farmers financially hurt by the Panic of 1873.
- November 28 â King KalÄkaua's 1874â75 state visit to the United States begins when the ship carrying him from Hawaii, USS Benicia, docks in San Francisco.
Undated
- The San Diego Natural History Museum is founded.[3]
- Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, is completed.
Ongoing
- Reconstruction era (1865â1877)
- Gilded Age (1869âc. 1896)
- Depression of 1873â79 (1873â1879)
Births
- January 4 â John Thomas, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1928 to 1933 and from 1940 to 1945 (died 1945)
- January 7 â M. M. Logan, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1931 to 1939 (died 1939)
- January 9 â Helen Tufts Bailie, social reformer and activist (died 1962)
- January 29 â John D. Rockefeller Jr., financier and philanthropist, son of John D. Rockefeller (died 1960)
- February 2 â William T. Innes, writer, ichthyologist, publisher (died 1969)
- March 4 â Stephen Victor Graham, United States Navy Rear Admiral and 18th Governor of American Samoa (died 1955)
- March 8 â Charles Weeghman, restaurateur and owner of Chicago Cubs (died 1938)
- April 5 â Jesse H. Jones, entrepreneur, 9th United States Secretary of Commerce (died 1956)
- April 16 â Frederick Van Nuys, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1933 to 1944 (died 1944)
- March 5 â Daniel O. Hastings, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1928 to 1937 (died 1966)
- March 26 â Robert Frost, poet (died 1963)
- March 29 â Lou Henry Hoover, First Lady of the United States as wife of Herbert Hoover (died 1944)
- May 20 â Augustine Lonergan, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1933 to 1939 (died 1947)
- July 1 â Edward P. Costigan, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1931 to 1937 (died 1939)
- July 3 â Margaret G. Hays, comics writer and artist (died 1925)
- August 5 â Mayme Schweble, gold miner and politician (died 1943)
- August 10
- Herbert Hoover, 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 (died 1964)
- Tod Sloan, jockey (died 1933)
- September 13 â Henry F. Ashurst, U.S. Senator from Arizona from 1912 to 1941 (died 1962)
- December 4 â Edwin S. Broussard, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1921 to 1933 (died 1934)
Deaths
- January 7 â John Burton Thompson, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1853 to 1859 (born 1810)
- January 17 â Chang and Eng Bunker, Thai-American conjoined twin brothers (born 1811)
- February 24 â John Bachman, Lutheran minister, social activist and naturalist (born 1790)
- March 8 â Millard Fillmore, 13th president of the U.S. from 1850 to 1853, and 12th vice president of the U.S. from 1849 to 1850 (born 1800)
- March 11 â Charles Sumner, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts from 1851 to 1874 (born 1811)
- June 8 â Cochise, one of the greatest leaders of the Apache Indians, dies on the Chiricahua reservation in southeastern Arizona
- October 6 â Samuel M. Kier, industrialist (born 1813)
- November 20 â Jackson Morton, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1849 to 1855 (born 1794)
- December 12 â Eugène Hilarian Abadie, U.S. Army Surgeon (born 1810)
- Full date unknown
- Paul Jennings, slave of James Madison, writer (born 1799)
- Eliza Seymour Lee, pastry chef and restaurateur (born 1800)
