1888 in the United States

Incumbents

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

• President: Grover Cleveland
• Vice President: vacant
• Chief Justice: Morrison Waite , Melville Fuller
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: John G. Carlisle
• Congress: 50th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

• January 12 - "Schoolhouse Blizzard": Blizzards hit Dakota Territory, the states of Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas, leaving 235 dead, many of whom are children on their way home from school.
• January 13 - The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C.
• February 27 - In West Orange, New Jersey, Thomas Edison meets with Eadweard Muybridge, who proposes a scheme for sound film.
• March 8 - The Agriculture College of Utah, is founded in Logan, Utah.
• March 11 - The "Great Blizzard of 1888" begins along the East Coast of the United States, shutting down commerce and killing more than 400.
• March 25 - Opening of an international Congress for Women's Rights organized by Susan B. Anthony in Washington, D.C., leading to formation of the International Council of Women, a key event in the international women's movement.
• May 1 - Fort Belknap Indian Reservation is established by the United States Congress.
• May 5 - The International Association of Machinists is founded in Atlanta, Georgia.
• June 3 - Ernest Thayer's baseball poem "Casey at the Bat" is first published as the last of his humorous contributions to The San Francisco Examiner.
• June 19 - The Republican Convention opens at the Auditorium Building, Chicago. Benjamin Harrison and Levi Morton win the nominations for President and Vice President, respectively.
• July 25 - Frank Edward McGurrin, a court stenographer from Salt Lake City, Utah, purportedly the only person using touch typing at this time, wins a decisive victory over Louis Traub in a typing contest held in Cincinnati, Ohio. This date can be called the birthday of the touch typing method that becomes widely used.
• August 10 - Lynching of Amos Miller: 23-year-old African American farmhand Amos Miller is hanged by a mob from the balcony of Williamson County Courthouse.
• August 25 - William Seward Burroughs patents the adding machine.
• September 4 - Eastman Kodak Company founded by George Eastman.
• September 8 - President of the United States Grover Cleveland declares the Chinese "impossible of assimilation with our people and dangerous to our peace and welfare".
• October 9 - The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public in D.C.
• November 6 - 1888 United States presidential election: Democratic Party incumbent Grover Cleveland wins the popular vote, but loses the Electoral College vote to Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison, therefore losing the election.
• November 27 - The sorority Delta Delta Delta is founded at Boston University.
• November 29 - Celebration of Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah coincide.

  Undated

• The Baldwin School is founded in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, as "Miss Baldwin's School for Girls, Preparatory for Bryn Mawr College".
• G. D. Searle is founded as a pharmaceutical company, originally in Omaha, Nebraska.
• Katz's Delicatessen is founded in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
• New Mexico State University is founded in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

  Ongoing

• Gilded Age

  Sport

• October 25 – The New York Giants clinch their First National League Championship series with an 11–3 win over the St. Louis Browns. The final 2 games will be played for revenue purposes with St. Louis winning both contests for an overall series result of 6 games to 4 in favor of the Giants.
• November 24 - Yale wins the Consensus College Football National Championship

  Births

• January 1 - John Garand, inventor and designer of the M1 Garand
• c. January 20 - Huddie William Ledbetter, folk and blues singer
• February 22 - Owen Brewster, U.S. Senator from Maine from 1941 to 1952
• February 25 - John Foster Dulles, U.S. Secretary of State from 1953 to 1959
• March 4 - Knute Rockne, American football player and coach
• March 10 - Ilo Wallace, Second Lady of the United States as wife of Henry A. Wallace
• March 26 - Gerald Murphy, socialite
• March 29 - James E. Casey, businessman and founder of UPS
• April 8 - Dennis Chávez, U.S. Senator from New Mexico from 1935 to 1962
• April 26 - Anita Loos, writer
• May 11
• * Irving Berlin, composer
• * Willis Augustus Lee, admiral and sport shooter
• May 15 - John E. Miller, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1937 to 1941
• July 5 - Herbert Spencer Gasser, physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1944
• July 10 - Hazel Abel, U.S. Senator from Nebraska in 1954
• July 23 - Raymond Chandler, novelist
• July 31 - William Warren Barbour, U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1931 to 1937
• August 5 - George W. Christians, founder of the Crusader White Shirts
• August 19 - Sam G. Bratton, U.S. Senator from New Mexico from 1925 to 1933
• September 2 - Charles C. Gossett, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1945 to 1946
• September 6 - Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., politician
• September 26
• * J. Frank Dobie, folklorist and journalist
• * T. S. Eliot, American-born poet, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948
• October 7 - Henry A. Wallace, 33rd Vice President of the United States from 1941 to 1945
• October 16
• * Eugene O'Neill, dramatist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936
• * Paul Popenoe, eugenicist
• October 30 - Alan Goodrich Kirk, admiral
• November 17 - J. Melville Broughton, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1948 to 1949
• November 23 - Harpo Marx, comedian
• December 18 - Robert Moses, public works director

  Deaths

• January 21 - Adolph Douai, German-American socialist and abolitionist newspaper editor, journalist and teacher
• February 8 - Robert H. Anderson, infantry officer in the United States Army and brigadier general in the Confederate States Army
• February 11 - William Kelly, inventor
• March 4 - Amos Bronson Alcott, educator and writer
• March 6 - Louisa May Alcott, author
• March 7 - Christopher Memminger, German-born American politician, 1st Confederate States Secretary of the Treasury
• March 19 - John Pendleton King, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1833 to 1837
• March 23 - Morrison Waite, 7th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
• April 18 - Roscoe Conkling, leader of the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party
• July 23 - Williams Carter Wickham, lawyer, politician, and Confederate general
• August 14 - Charles Crocker, railroad executive
• August 16 - John Pemberton, pharmacist and inventor of Coca-Cola
• August 22 - Charles W. Cathcart, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1845 to 1853
• September 30 - Eunice Newton Foote, physicist and women's rights campaigner
• October 16 - John Wentworth, mayor of Chicago from 1857 to 1858 and 1860 to 1861
• November 20 - Nathaniel Currier, illustrator
• December 18 - Eagle Woman, Lakota leader