1893 in the United States

Incumbents

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

• President: Benjamin Harrison , Grover Cleveland
• Vice President: Levi P. Morton , Adlai E. Stevenson I
• Chief Justice: Melville Fuller
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Charles Frederick Crisp
• Congress: 52nd, 53rd

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January–March

• January 2 - Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America.
• January 17 - The U.S. Marines intervene in Hawaii, resulting in overthrow of the government of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii.
• January 21 - The Cherry Sisters first perform in Marion, Iowa.
• February 1 - Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey.
• February 24 - American University is established by an Act of Congress in Washington, D.C.
• February 28 - USS Indiana, the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of this time, is launched at Philadelphia; she is commissioned in 1895.
• March 4 - Grover Cleveland is sworn in as the 24th President of the United States.

  April–June

• April 1 - The rank of Chief Petty Officer is established in the U.S. Navy.
• April 8 - The first recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania between the Geneva College Covenanters and the New Brighton YMCA.
• May 1 - The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, opens to the public in Chicago, Illinois. The first U.S. commemorative postage stamps and Coins are issued for the Exposition.
• May 5 - Panic of 1893: A crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression.
• May 9 - Edison's 1½ inch system of Kinetoscope is first demonstrated in public at the Brooklyn Institute.
• June 9 - The front part of Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. collapses, killing 22 War Department clerks and injuring 68 others.
• June 20 - Lizzie Borden is found not guilty for the murder of her father and step-mother in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

  July–September

• July 1 - U.S. President Grover Cleveland has a secret operation to remove cancer in his mouth.
• July 6 - The small town of Pomeroy, Iowa is nearly destroyed by a tornado; 71 people are killed and 200 injured.
• July 12 - Frederick Jackson Turner gives a lecture titled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" before the American Historical Association in Chicago.
• July 22 - Katharine Lee Bates writes "America the Beautiful", after admiring the view from the top of Pikes Peak, near Colorado Springs.
• August 27 - The Sea Islands Hurricane hits Savannah, Charleston, and the Sea Islands, killing 1,000–2,000.
• September 9 - First Lady Frances Cleveland gives birth in the White House to daughter Esther Cleveland.
• September 11-27 - The World Parliament of Religions opens in Chicago.
• September 11 - Standing ovation to Hindu monk Swami Vivekanda for his address in Response to the welcome at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
• September 19 - Swami Vivekananda delivers an inspiring speech on his paper at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
• September 21 - Brothers Charles and Frank Duryea drive the first gasoline-powered motorcar in America on public roads in Springfield, Massachusetts.
• September 23 - The Bahá'í Faith is first publicly mentioned in the United States at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.

  October–December

• October 7 - Finley Peter Dunne introduces his character Mr. Dooley in the Chicago Evening Post.
• October 11 - Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire is officially dedicated.
• November 7 - Colorado women are granted the right to vote.
• December 20 - Evergreen Park, Illinois, is incorporated.

  Undated

• Sisters Patty and Mildred J. Hill publish Song Stories for the Kindergarten including "Good Morning to All", which later becomes known as "Happy Birthday to You".
• The American National Sculpture Society is founded.
• is founded.
• Colored High becomes the first African American high school in Houston, Texas; its name is later changed to Booker T. Washington High School.
• The American Council on Alcohol Problems is established, along with the Anti-Saloon League and the Committee of Fifty for the Study of the Liquor Problem.
• American Temperance University is opened in Harriman, Tennessee.

  Ongoing

• Gilded Age
• Gay Nineties
• Progressive Era
• Panic of 1893
• Garza Revolution in Texas and Mexico

  Births

• January 11 - Anthony M. Rud, writer
• January 12 - Edward Selzer, film producer
• January 18 - Thomas E. Martin, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1955 to 1961
• January 23 - Frank Carlson, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1950 to 1969
• February 10 - Jimmy Durante, actor, singer and comedian
• March 27 - G. Lloyd Spencer, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1941 to 1943
• April 20
• * Harold Lloyd, actor
• * Edna Parker, supercentenarian
• April 23 - Allen Dulles, Central Intelligence Agency director
• April 29 - Harold Urey, chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in 1934
• June 24
• * Roy O. Disney, partner in Walt Disney Productions
• * Suzanne La Follette, libertarian feminist
• June 26 - Big Bill Broonzy, blues singer and composer
• August 17 - Mae West, film actress
• August 20 - Robert Humphreys, U.S. Senator from Kentucky in 1956
• August 22 - Dorothy Parker, writer
• August 30 - Huey Long, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1932 to 1935
• August 31 - Raymond E. Baldwin, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1946 to 1949
• September 6 - John W. Bricker, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 1947 to 1959
• September 24 - Blind Lemon Jefferson, blues and gospel singer-songwriter
• October 14 - Lillian Gish, actress, "First Lady of American Cinema"
• October 23 - Gummo Marx, vaudevillian and theatrical agent
• November 10 - John P. Marquand, novelist
• December 1 - Henry J. Cadbury, Quaker biblical scholar

  Deaths

• January 11 - Benjamin Butler, major general of the Union Army during the American Civil War, and for his leader in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson
• January 17 - Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the U.S. from 1877 to 1881
• January 23 - Phillips Brooks, Episcopal clergyman
• January 27 - James G. Blaine, U.S. Senator from Maine from 1876 to 1881 and Secretary of State in 1881 and from 1889 to 1892
• February 1 - Joseph P. Comegys, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1856 to 1857
• February 19 - George E. Spencer, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1868 to 1879
• February 20 - P. G. T. Beauregard, Southern military officer, politician, inventor, writer, civil servant, and the first prominent general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War
• March 2 - Richard M. Bishop, 34th Governor of Ohio from 1878 to 1880
• March 18 - David H. Armstrong, Canadian-born U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1877 to 1879
• March 22 - Eli M. Saulsbury, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1871 to 1889
• March 28 - Edmund Kirby Smith, career United States Army officer who served with the Confederates during the American Civil War
• April 4 - David Meriwether, U.S. Senator from Kentucky in 1852
• June 7 - Edwin Booth, actor
• June 21 - Leland Stanford, U.S. Senator from California from 1885 to 1893
• July 2 - Georgiana Drew, comic actress
• July 17 - Frederick A. Johnson, politician and banker.
• July 19 - Charles Colcock Jones, Jr., Georgia politician, attorney, historian and folklorist
• August 10 - Robert Cornelius, pioneer of photography
• August 20 - Brother Azarias, educator
• September 29 - Willis Benson Machen, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1872 to 1873
• October 18 - Lucy Stone, social reformer
• November 11 - Charles H. Bell, U.S. Senator from New Hampshire in 1879
• November 22 - James Calder, 5th President of the Pennsylvania State University
• December 2 - Pauline Cushman, actress and Union spy
• December 7 - David Jewett Waller Sr., Presbyterian minister and businessman
• December 16 - James Black, temperance movement leader