1895 in the United States explained

Events from the year 1895 in the United States.

Incumbents

• President: Grover Cleveland (D-New York)
• Vice President: Adlai E. Stevenson I (D-Illinois)
• Chief Justice: Melville Fuller (Illinois)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives:

Charles Frederick Crisp (D-Georgia) (until March 4)

Thomas Brackett Reed (R-Maine) (starting December 2)

• Congress: 53rd (until March 4), 54th (starting March 4)

Events

• February 9  - Mintonette, later known as volleyball, is created by William G. Morgan at Holyoke, Massachusetts.
• March 1  - William Lyne Wilson is appointed United States Postmaster General.
• May 27  - In re Debs: The Supreme Court of the United States decides that the federal government has the right to regulate interstate commerce, legalizing the military suppression of the Pullman Strike.
• June 28  - The United States Court of Private Land Claims rules that James Reavis's claim to Barony of Arizona is "wholly fictitious and fraudulent".
• July 4  - Katharine Lee Bates' lyrics for "America the Beautiful" are first published.
• July 6  - Van Cortlandt Golf Course opens in The Bronx as the country's first and oldest public golf course.^[1]
• August 19  - American frontier murderer and outlaw John Wesley Hardin is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.
• September 3  - The first professional American football game is played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club (Latrobe wins 12–0).
• September 18  - Booker T. Washington delivers the Atlanta Compromise speech.^[2]
• November 5  - George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
• November 20  - USS Indiana, the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of this time, is commissioned.
• November 25  - Oscar Hammerstein opens the Olympia Theatre, the first theatre to be built in New York City's Times Square district.
• November 28  - Chicago Times-Herald race: The first American automobile race in history is sponsored by the Chicago Times-Herald. Press coverage first arouses significant U.S. interest in the automobile.^[3]
• December 24  - George Washington Vanderbilt II officially opens his Biltmore Estate on Christmas Eve, inviting his family and guests to celebrate his new home in Asheville, North Carolina.

Undated

• W. E. B. Du Bois becomes the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
• The gold reserve of the U.S. Treasury is saved when J. P. Morgan and the Rothschilds loan $65 million worth of gold to the United States government.
• Temple Cup: Cleveland Spiders defeat Baltimore Orioles, 4 games to 1

Ongoing

• Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
• Gay Nineties (1890–1899)
• Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)

Births

• January 1
  • Bert Acosta, aviator (died 1954)
  • J. Edgar Hoover, 1st Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (died 1972)
• January 4  - Leroy Grumman, aeronautical engineer, test pilot and industrialist (died 1982)
• January 11  - Laurens Hammond, inventor (died 1973)
• January 23  - Harry Darby, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1949 to 1950 (died 1987)
• February 2  - George Halas, football player (died 1983)
• February 6  - Babe Ruth, baseball player (died 1948)
• February 25  - Lew Andreas, basketball coach (died 1984)
• March 4
  • Milt Gross, comic book illustrator and animator (died 1953)
  • Shemp Howard, actor and comedian (The Three Stooges) (died 1955)
• March 12  - William C. Lee, general (died 1948)
• March 15  - Virgil Chapman, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1949 to 1951 (died 1951)
• March 27  - Ruth Snyder, murderer (electrocuted 1928)
• March 28
  • Donald Barnhouse, theologian, pastor, author, and radio pioneer (died 1960)
  • Spencer W. Kimball, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (died 1985)
• April 20  - Emile Christian, musician (died 1973)
• May 2  - Lorenz Hart, lyricist (died 1943)
• May 11  - William Grant Still, "the Dean" of African American composers (died 1978)
• May 15  - Prescott Bush, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1952 to 1963 (died 1972)
• May 25  - Dorothea Lange, documentary photographer and photojournalist (died 1965 in the United States)
• May 28  - Samuel D. Jackson, U.S. Senator from Indiana in 1944 (died 1951)
• June 10
  • William C. Feazel, U.S. Senator from Louisiana in 1948 (died 1965)
  • Hattie McDaniel, African American film actress (died 1952)
• June 21  - John Wesley Snyder, businessman and Secretary of the Treasury (died 1985)
• June 24  - Jack Dempsey, heavyweight boxer (died 1983)
• July 1  - Lucy Somerville Howorth, lawyer, feminist and politician (died 1997)
• July 3  - Jean Paige, actress (died 1990)
• July 4  - Irving Caesar, lyricist and theater composer (died 1996)
• July 9  - Joe Gleason, baseball pitcher (died 1990)
• July 10  - Andrew Earl Weatherly, philatelist (died 1981)
• July 12  - Richard Buckminster Fuller, architect (died 1983)
• July 13  - Bradley Kincaid, folk singer (died 1989)
• July 19  - Snake Henry, baseball player (died 1987)
• July 20  - Chapman Revercomb, politician and lawyer (died 1979)
• July 26
  • Gracie Allen, comic actress (died 1964)
  • Kenneth Harlan, actor (died 1967)
• July 30  - Joseph DuMoe, football coach (died 1959)
• August 10  - Harry Richman, entertainer (died 1972)
• August 12  - Lynde D. McCormick, admiral (died 1956)
• September 20  - Lloyd W. Bertaud, aviator (died 1927)
• September 22  - Elmer Austin Benson, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1935 to 1936 and 24th Governor of Minnesota from 1937 to 1939 (died 1985)
• September 29  - Joseph Banks Rhine, parapsychologist (died 1980)
• October 4  - Buster Keaton, born Joseph Frank Keaton, silent film comedian (died 1966)
• October 6  - Caroline Gordon, writer and critic (died 1981)
• October 13  - Mike Gazella, baseball player (died 1978)
• October 14  - Silas Simmons, Pre-Negro league baseball player, longest-lived professional baseball player (died 2006)
• October 19  - Lewis Mumford, historian & philosopher of science (died 1990)
• October 22  - Johnny Morrison, baseball player (died 1966)
• October 23  - Clinton Presba Anderson, U.S. Senator from New Mexico from 1949 to 1973 (died 1975)
• October 30  - Dickinson W. Richards, physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1973)
• November 10  - John Knudsen Northrop, airplane manufacturer (died 1981)
• November 14  - Walter Freeman, neurologist (died 1972)
• November 29  - Busby Berkeley, film director and choreographer (died 1976)
• December 2  - W. Conway Pierce, chemist (died 1974)
• December 20  - Susanne Langer, philosopher (died 1985)
• December 24  - Marguerite Williams, African American geologist (died 1991)
• December 28  - Carol Ryrie Brink, author (died 1981)

Deaths

• January 9  - Aaron Lufkin Dennison, watchmaker (born 1812)
• February 20  - Frederick Douglass, African American rights activist and former slave (born 1817)
• March 22  - Henry Coppée, historian and biographer (born 1821)
• April 22  - James F. Wilson, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1883 to 1895. (born 1828)
• May 28  - Walter Q. Gresham, politician (born 1832)
• June 23
  • Thomas Shaw, buffalo soldier and Medal of Honor recipient (born 1846)
  • James Renwick Jr., architect (born 1818)
• June 29  - Green Clay Smith, politician (born 1826)
• July 28  - Edward Beecher, theologian (born 1803)
• August 1  - Hugh O'Brien, 31st Mayor of Boston, Massachusetts (born 1827)
• August 6  - George Frederick Root, composer (born 1820)
• August 22  - Luzon B. Morris, politician (born 1827)
• October 2  - Robert Crozier, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1873 to 1874 (born 1827)
• October 6  - L. L. Langstroth, beekeeper (born 1810)
• October 8  - William Mahone, civil engineer and Confederate Army major general (born 1826)
• October 14  - Clara Doty Bates, poet and children's literature author (born 1838)
• November 4  - Eugene Field, children's author (born 1850)
• Full date unknown  - John Miley, Methodist theologian (born 1813)

See also

• List of American films of the 1890s
• Timeline of United States history (1860–1899)

Notes and References

1. Web site: Van Cortlandt Park Highlights – Van Cortlandt Golf Course. NYC Parks. 2017-01-11.
2. Book: Gottheimer. Josh. Bill. Clinton. Mary Frances. Berry. 2004. Ripples of Hope: Great American Civil Rights Speeches. registration. 128.
3. Book: Berger, Michael L.. The Automobile in American History and Culture: a reference guide. 278.