1873 in the United States explained

Events from the year 1873 in the United States.

Incumbents

• President: Ulysses S. Grant (R-Illinois)
• Vice President:

Schuyler Colfax (R-Indiana) (until March 4)

Henry Wilson (R-Massachusetts) (starting March 4)

• Chief Justice: Salmon P. Chase (Ohio) (until May 7)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: James G. Blaine (R-Maine)
• Congress: 42nd (until March 4), 43rd (starting March 4)

Events

January–March

• January 1  - The California Penal Code goes into effect.
• January 17  - Indian Wars: The first Battle of the Stronghold is fought during the Modoc War.
• February 20  - The University of California opens its first medical school in San Francisco.
• March – Downers Grove, Illinois is incorporated.
• March 1  - E. Remington and Sons of Ilion, New York, start production of the first practical typewriter.
• March 3  - Censorship: The U.S. Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.
• March 4  - President Ulysses S. Grant begins his second term. Henry Wilson sworn in as Vice President of the United States.
• March 15  - The Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity is founded at the Massachusetts Agricultural College.
• March 22  - Emancipation Day for Puerto Rico: Slaves are freed (with a few exceptions).

April–June

• April 1
  • The Coinage Act of 1873 comes into force, ending bimetallism in the U.S. and placing the nation firmly on the gold standard.
  • Hinsdale, Illinois is incorporated.
• April 13  - Between 62 and 153 Republican freedmen and state militia die in the Colfax massacre while attempting to protect the Grant Parish courthouse, including about 50 who surrendered.
• April 15 - 17  - Indian Wars: The Second Battle of the Stronghold is fought.
• May  - Henry Rose exhibits barbed wire at an Illinois county fair, which is taken up by Joseph Glidden and Jacob Haish, who invent a machine to mass-produce it.
• May 13  - First U.S. postal card is issued.
• May 20 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive United States patent#139121 for using copper rivets to strengthen the pockets of denim work pants. Levi Strauss & Co. begin manufacturing the famous Levi's brand of jeans, using fabric from the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester, New Hampshire.
• May 23
  • The Preakness Stakes horse race first runs in Baltimore, Maryland.
  • Postal cards are sold in San Francisco for the first time.
• June 2  - Construction begins on the Clay Street Hill Railroad in San Francisco.
• June 4  - Indian Wars: The Modoc War ends with the capture of Kintpuash ("Captain Jack").

July–September

• July 21  - At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American West (US$3,000 from the Rock Island Express).
• August 4  - Indian Wars: While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the Seventh Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, clashes for the first time with the Sioux, near the Tongue River (only 1 man on each side is killed).
• September 6  - Regular cable car service begins on Clay Street, San Francisco.
• September 17  - The Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, later Ohio State University, opens its doors with 25 students, including 2 women.
• September 18  - The New York stock market crash triggers the Panic of 1873, part of the Long Depression.

October–December

• October 30  - P.T. Barnum's circus, The Greatest Show on Earth, debuts in New York City.
• December 15  - Women of Fredonia, New York march against the retail liquor dealers in town, inaugurating the Women's Crusade of 1873–74. This leads to the creation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
• December 23  - Women's Crusade spreads to Hillsboro, Ohio.
• December 25  - Delta Gamma sorority founded in Oxford, Mississippi.

Undated

• Railroads connect Northern Michigan port cities of Ludington, Traverse City and Petoskey.
• Coors Brewing Company begins making beer in Golden, Colorado.
• Central Park is officially completed in New York City.
• Nine Pekin ducks are imported to Long Island (the first in the United States).
• Eliza Daniel Stewart organizes the Woman's Temperance League in Osborn, Ohio.

Ongoing

• Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
• Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
• Depression of 1873–79 (1873–1879)

Births

• January 2  - John M. Robsion, U.S. Senator from Kentucky in 1930 (died 1948)
• January 4  - Blanche Walsh, stage and screen actress (died 1915)
• January 8  - Grace Van Studdiford, stage actress and opera singer (died 1927)
• January 9  - Thomas Curtis, hurdler (died 1944)
• February 4  - Joel R. P. Pringle, admiral (died 1932)
• February 11  - Louis Charles Christopher Krieger, mycologist (died 1940)
• March 3  - William Green, labor leader (died 1952)
• March 5  - Thomas Harrison Montgomery, Jr., zoologist and cell biologist (died 1912)
• March 29  - Billy Quirk, silent film actor (died 1926)
• April 7  - John McGraw, baseball player and manager (died 1934)
• April 13  - John W. Davis, politician, diplomat and lawyer (died 1955)
• May 5  - Leon Czolgosz, assassin of President William McKinley (executed 1901)
• May 9
  • Anton Cermak, Mayor of Chicago (died 1933)
  • Lois Irene Marshall, née Kimsey, Second Lady of the United States as wife of Thomas R. Marshall (died 1958)
• April 22  - Ellen Glasgow, novelist (died 1945)
• July 6  - Ethel Sands, painter (died 1962 in the United Kingdom)
• July 11  - Nat M. Wills, vaudeville entertainer (died 1917)
• August 3  - Alexander Posey, Native American poet, journalist, humorist and politician (drowned 1908)
• August 5  - Joseph Russell Knowland, politician and newspaperman (died 1966)
• August 10  - William Ernest Hocking, philosopher (died 1966)
• August 11  - J. Rosamond Johnson, African American composer and singer (died 1954)
• August 17  - John A. Sampson, gynecologist (died 1946)
• August 18  - Otto Harbach, lyricist (died 1963)
• August 21  - Harry T. Morey, stage and screen actor (died 1936)
• August 25  - Blanche Bates, stage and screen actress (died 1941)
• August 26  - Lee de Forest, inventor (died 1961)
• September 2  - Bessie Van Vorst, campaigning journalist (died 1928)
• September 5  - Cornelius Vanderbilt III, military officer, inventor and engineer (died 1942)
• September 8  - David O. McKay, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (died 1970)
• September 14  - Josiah Bailey, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1931 to 1946 (died 1946)
• September 21  - Papa Jack Laine, New Orleans brass band leader (died 1966)
• October 2  - Stephen Warfield Gambrill, U.S. Congressman for Maryland's 5th District (died 1924)
• October 3  - Emily Post, etiquette expert (died 1960)
• October 8  - Ma Barker, née Kate Clark, matriarch of the Barker–Karpis gang (killed 1935)
• October 9  - Charles Rudolph Walgreen, businessman (died 1939)
• October 10  - George Cabot Lodge, poet (died 1909)
• October 14  - Ray Ewry, field athlete (died 1937)
• October 17  - William Luther Hill, U.S. Senator from Florida in 1936 (died 1951)
• October 18  - Harris Laning, admiral (died 1941)
• October 19  - Bart King, cricketer (died 1965)
• October 29  - Lester J. Dickinson, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1931 to 1937 (died 1968)
• November 10  - David Lynn, architect, Architect of the Capitol from 1923 to 1954 (died 1961)
• November 16  - W. C. Handy, African American composer, "father of the Blues" (died 1958)
• November 28  - Frank Phillips, oil executive (died 1950)
• December 7  - Willa Cather, novelist (died 1947)
• December 12  - Lola Ridge, poet (died 1941)
• December 30  - Al Smith, politician (died 1944)
• Undated  - Thomas Chrostwaite, educator (died 1958)

Deaths

• February 1  - Matthew Fontaine Maury, oceanographer (born 1806)
• March 4  - Alfred Iverson, Sr., U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1855 to 1861 (born 1798)
• March 10  - John Torrey, botanist (born 1796)
• March 27  - James Dixon, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1857 to 1869 (born 1814)
• March 31  - Hugh Maxwell, lawyer and politician (born 1787)
• April 11  - Edward Canby, general (born 1817)
• May 7  - Salmon P. Chase, 6th Chief Justice of the United States, 25th United States Secretary of the Treasury (born 1808)
• May 9  - Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, poet (born 1821)
• June 11  - Richard Saltonstall Rogers, shipping merchant and politician (born 1790)
• October 5  - William Todd, businessman and Canadian senate nominee (born 1803)
• November 9  - Stephen Mallory, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1851 to 1861 (born 1812)
• November 27  - Richard Yates, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1865 to 1871 (born 1815)
• December 14  - Louis Agassiz, geologist and zoologist (born 1807 in Switzerland)
• December 24  - Johns Hopkins, entrepreneur and benefactor (born 1795)

See also

• Timeline of United States history (1860–1899)