1890 in the United States

Incumbents

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

• President: Benjamin Harrison
• Vice President: Levi P. Morton
• Chief Justice: Melville Fuller
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Thomas Brackett Reed
• Congress: 51st

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January–June

• January-June period - George W. Johnson becomes the first African American to record phonograph cylinders, in New York.
• January 1 - In Michigan, the wooden steamer Mackinaw burns in a fire on the Black River.
• January 2 - Alice Sanger becomes the first female staffer in the White House.
• January 22 - The United Mine Workers is founded.
• January 25 - Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.
• 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 - National American Woman Suffrage Association established.
• 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 - In Michigan, the wooden steamer Ryan is lost near Thunder Bay Island.
• 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 United States law.
• July 3 - Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. State.
• July 10 - Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. State.
• July 13 - In Minnesota, storms result in the Sea Wing disaster on Lake Pepin killing 98.
• August 6 - At Auburn Prison in New York, William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed in the electric chair.
• August 10 - In Boston, Irish-born poet John Boyle O'Reilly dies suddenly, aged 46. The death triggers a mass outpouring of grief and tributes across the country and the world.
• September - 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.
• October 13
• *The Delta Chi Fraternity is founded by 11 law students at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
• *In Michigan, the schooner J. F. Warner is lost at Thunder Bay.
• 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 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.
• The march "High School Cadets" is written by John Philip Sousa.
• Brown trout are introduced into the upper Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park.

  Ongoing

• Gilded Age
• Gay Nineties
• Progressive Era

  Sport

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

  Births

• January 4 - Victor Adamson, Western film director, producer, screenwriter and actor
• January 22 - Fred M. Vinson, 13th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
• January 28 - Robert Franklin Stroud, "Birdman of Alcatraz"
• February 18
• * Edward Arnold, actor
• * Adolphe Menjou, film actor
• February 24 - Marjorie Main, character actress
• February 27
• * Freddie Keppard, jazz cornet player
• * Art Smith, pilot
• March 11 - Vannevar Bush, science administrator
• March 21 - C. Douglass Buck, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1943 to 1949
• March 28 - Paul Whiteman, bandleader
• April 7
• * Marjory Stoneman Douglas, conservationist and writer
• * Harry W. Hill, admiral
• April 13 - Frank Murphy, politician and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
• May 1 - Laurence Wild, basketball player and 30th Governor of American Samoa
• May 11 - Woodall Rodgers, lawyer and politician, Mayor of Dallas
• May 15 - Katherine Anne Porter, author
• June 1 - Frank Morgan, character actor
• June 26
• * Oscar C. Badger II, admiral
• * Jeanne Eagels, actress
• July 22 - Rose Kennedy, philanthropist and matriarch of the Kennedy family
• July 26 - Daniel J. Callaghan, admiral
• August 20 - H. P. Lovecraft, horror fiction author
• September 20 - Jelly Roll Morton, jazz pianist, composer and bandleader
• September 24 - Allen J. Ellender, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1937 to 1972
• October 1
• * Katherine Corri Harris, socialite and actress, first wife of John Barrymore
• * Alice Joyce, silent film actress
• * Blanche Oelrichs, poet, second wife of John Barrymore
• October 2 - Groucho Marx, comedian
• October 8 - Eddie Rickenbacker, race car driver and World War I fighter pilot
• October 13 - Conrad Richter, fiction writer
• October 14 - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States from 1953 to 1961
• 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
• October 25 - Floyd Bennett, aviator and explorer
• December 21 - Hermann Joseph Muller, geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1946
• December 25 - Robert Ripley, collector of odd facts
• December 26 - Uncle Charlie Osborne, Appalachian fiddler

  Deaths

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