1879 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: Rutherford B. Hayes
• Vice President: William A. Wheeler
• Chief Justice: Morrison Waite
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Samuel J. Randall
• Congress: 45th, 46th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

• January - The constitution of California is ratified.
• January 1 - The Specie Resumption Act takes effect: the Greenback is valued the same as gold for the first time since the American Civil War.
• February 12 - At New York City's Madison Square Garden, the first artificial ice rink in North America opens.
• February 15 - Women's rights: American President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
• February 22 - In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of 5 and 10-cent Woolworth stores.
• March 3 - The United States Geological Survey is created.
• April 8 - Milk sold in glass bottles for the first time.
• April 12 - Mary Baker Eddy founds the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston.
• May 10 -
• * The Archaeological Institute of America is formed.
• * Completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah, where the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad rails met on May 10, 1869.
• * Meteorite falls near Estherville, Iowa.
• May 30 - New York City's Gilmore's Garden is renamed Madison Square Garden after 4th President James Madison by William Henry Vanderbilt, and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.
• June 21 - Infielder William White plays in one game for the Providence Grays and in conjecture becomes the first African American to play MLB.
• July 1 - Christian Restorationist Charles Taze Russell publishes the first issue of the monthly Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence which, as The Watchtower, will become the most widely circulated magazine in the world.
• July 8 - The ill-fated U.S. Jeannette Expedition departs San Francisco in an attempt to reach the North Pole by pioneering a route through the Bering Strait.
• July 19 - Doc Holliday kills for the first time after a man shoots up Holliday's New Mexico saloon.
• September - Henry George self-publishes his major work Progress and Poverty.
• September 25 - Deadwood, South Dakota fire: 2000 people are left homeless and 300 buildings destroyed; total loss of property is estimated at $3 million.
• September 29 - Meeker Massacre: Nathan Meeker and others are killed in an uprising at the White River Ute Indian Reservation in Colorado.
• October 22 - Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric light bulb.
• November - Simmons College of Kentucky, a historically black school, is founded.
• December 31 - Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
• Undated - Laton Alton Huffman photographs Native American woman Pretty Nose.

  Ongoing

• Gilded Age
• Depression of 1873–79

  Sport

• September 26 – The Providence Grays defeat the Boston Red Caps 7–6 to clinch their First National League pennant

  Births

• January 3 - Grace Coolidge, First Lady of the United States and Second Lady of the United States as wife of Calvin Coolidge
• January 12
• * Ray Harroun, race car driver
• * Calbraith Perry Rodgers, pioneer aviator, makes first transcontinental U.S. flight
• January 13 - Melvin Jones, founder of Lions Clubs International
• January 20 - Ruth St. Denis, dancer
• February 3 - Guy Gillette, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1936 to 1945
• February 12 - George McGill, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1930 to 1939
• February 17 - Dorothy Canfield Fisher, activist and novelist
• March 6 - William P. Cronan, 19th Naval Governor of Guam
• March 18 - Emma Carus, opera singer
• March 27 - Edward Steichen, photographer, painter and curator
• April 1 - Louise Gunning, vaudeville singer
• April 9 - Thomas Meighan, film actor
• April 14 - James Branch Cabell, novelist
• April 24 - Oris Paxton Van Sweringen, financier
• May 3 - Clyde L. Herring, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1937 to 1943
• May 12
• * George Landenberger, U.S. Navy captain and 23rd Governor of American Samoa
• * Georgia Ann Robinson, community worker, first African American woman to be appointed a Los Angeles police officer
• May 19
• * Nancy Astor, née Langhorne, American-born British politician
• * Waldorf Astor, American-born British politician and newspaper proprietor
• May 22 - Eastwood Lane, composer
• June 3 - Raymond Pearl, biologist
• June 13 - Lois Weber, film director and screenwriter
• June 21 - Henry Creamer, songwriter
• July 1
• * Nicky Arnstein, professional gambler and con artist, married to Fanny Brice
• * H. Craig Severance, architect
• July 10 - Charles P. Snyder, admiral
• July 28 - Lucy Burns, women's rights campaigner
• August 2 - James M. Tunnell, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1941 to 1947
• August 8 - Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, professor of jurisprudence
• August 15 - Ethel Barrymore, actress
• August 20 - Ralph Budd, railroad president
• August 27 - Otis F. Glenn, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1928 to 1933
• August 28 - Sydney Ayres, silent film actor
• September 13 - James Larkin Pearson, poet and newspaper publisher, North Carolina Poet Laureate from 1953 to 1981
• September 14 - Margaret Sanger, birth control advocate
• September 19 - Louis Joseph Vance, novelist
• October 2 - Wallace Stevens, poet
• October 5 - Francis Peyton Rous, pathologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1966
• October 12 - Chris Smith, African American vaudeville composer and performer
• October 15 - Jane Darwell, née Patti Woodard, actress
• October 21 - Eugene Burton Ely, pioneer aviator
• November 4 - Will Rogers, humorist
• November 10 - Vachel Lindsay, poet
• November 15 - Lewis Stone, actor, known for playing Judge Hardy
• November 26 - Charles W. Goddard, playwright and screenwriter
• November 28 - Guy V. Howard, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1936 to 1937
• December 1 - Beth Slater Whitson, lyricist
• December 5 - Clyde Cessna, aviator, aircraft designer and manufacturer
• December 10 - Jouett Shouse, politician
• December 12 - Laura Hope Crews, actress
• December 15 - Bert H. Miller, U.S. Senator from Idaho in 1949
• December 20 - Earle Ovington, aviator, flies first experimental airmail
• December 25 - Grace George, actress
• December 26 - Christie Benet, U.S. Senator from South Carolina in 1918
• December 28 - Billy Mitchell, general, military aviation pioneer

  Deaths

• February 2 – Richard Henry Dana Sr., poet, critic and lawyer
• March 2
• * John Eberhard Faber, pencil manufacturer
• * Wade Keyes, Acting Confederate States Attorney General in 1861 and 1863–1864
• March 16 – George Goldthwaite, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1871 to 1877
• April 12 – Richard Taylor, Confederate general
• April 30 – Sarah Josepha Hale, writer
• May 24 – William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist
• June 1
• * James Shields, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1849 to 1855, from Minnesota from 1858 to 1859 and from Missouri in 1879
• * Louisa Caroline Huggins Tuthill, children's writer
• June 26 – Richard H. Anderson, United States Army officer during the Mexican–American War, Confederate general during the American Civil War
• July 4 – Sarah Dorsey, novelist and historian
• July 7 – George Caleb Bingham, realist painter
• July 11 – William Allen, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 1837 to 1849
• July 16 – Frederick Langenheim, pioneer of panoramic photography
• July 26 – Robert Ward Johnson, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1862 to 1865
• August 30 – John Bell Hood, Confederate general
• September 8 – William Morris Hunt, painter
• September 30 – Francis Gillette, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1854 to 1855
• October 11 – Ethel Lynn Beers, poet
• October 13 – Henry Charles Carey, economist
• October 31
• * Jacob Abbott, children's writer
• * Joseph Hooker, Union Army general during the American Civil War
• November 1 – Zachariah Chandler, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1857 to 1875 and in 1879
• December 31 – George S. Houston, Governor of Alabama from 1874 to 1878 and U.S. Senator from Alabama in 1879