1869 in the United States
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Events from the year 1869 in the United States.
Incumbents
- President: Andrew Johnson (D-Tennessee) (until March 4), Ulysses S. Grant (R-Ohio) (starting March 4)
- Vice President: vacant (until March 4), Schuyler Colfax (R-Indiana) (starting March 4)
- Chief Justice: Salmon P. Chase (Ohio)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives:
- until March 3: Schuyler Colfax (R-Indiana)
- March 3–March 4: Theodore Medad Pomeroy (R-New York)
- starting March 4: James G. Blaine (R-Maine)
- Congress: 40th (until March 4), 41st (starting March 4)
| Governors and Lieutenant Governors |
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Governors2
Lieutenant Governors2
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Events
January–March
- January 1 – Sigma Nu, the first anti-hazing honor/social fraternity, is founded, at Virginia Military Institute.
- January 20 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first woman to testify before the United States Congress.
- January 21 – The P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic educational organization for women, is founded at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.
- March 4 – Ulysses S. Grant succeeds Andrew Johnson as the 18th President of the United States of America.
April–June
- April 6 – The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York City.
- May 6 – Purdue University is founded in West Lafayette, Indiana.
- May 10 – The "golden spike" is driven marking the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in Promontory, Utah.
- May 15 – Woman's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.
- May 26 – Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
- June 1 – The Cincinnati Red Stockings open the baseball season as the first fully professional baseball team.
- June 15 – John Wesley Hyatt patents the first plastic, Celluloid, in Albany, New York.
July–September
- September 24 – Black Friday: The Fisk-Gould Scandal causes a financial panic in the United States.
October–December
- November 6 – The first intercollegiate game of American football is played: Rutgers University defeats Princeton University 6–4 in a college football game.
- December 7 – Outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.
- December 10
- The first American chapter of Kappa Sigma is founded at the University of Virginia.
- The Wyoming territorial legislature gives women the right to vote, one of the first such laws in the world.
Undated
- Heinz H.J. Heinz Company is founded as Heinz Noble & Company in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania.
- James Gordon Bennett, Jr. of the New York Herald asks Henry Morton Stanley to find Dr. Livingstone.
- Southern Illinois University, Carbondale is founded.
- Marcus Jastrow arrives in the United States to become rabbi of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.
Ongoing
- Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
- Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
Births
- February 2 – Smith W. Brookhart, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1922 to 1926 (died 1944)
- February 19 – Frederic C. Walcott, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1929 to 1935 (died 1949)
- April 2 – Hughie Jennings, baseball player (died 1928)
- April 4 – Mary Colter, architect (died 1958)
- April 8 – Harvey Cushing, neurosurgeon (died 1939)
- April 9 – James Thomas Heflin, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1920 to 1931 (died 1951)
- May 3 – Warren Terhune, U.S. Navy Commander and 13th Governor of American Samoa (died 1920)
- June 10 – William Kenyon, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1909 to 1922 (died 1933)
- July 17 – Mariette Rheiner Garner, wife of John Nance Garner, Second Lady of the United States (died 1948)
- July 20 – Howard Thurston, stage magician (died 1936)
- August 5 – J. C. W. Beckham, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1915 till 1921 (died 1940)
- December 16 – Bertha Lamme, electrical engineer (died 1943)
- December 22
- Edwin Arlington Robinson, poet (died 1935)
- Nathan Paine, lumber baron (died 1947)
Deaths
- January 1 – Martin W. Bates, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1857 to 1859 (born 1786)
- January 11 – Sophia Dallas, wife of George M. Dallas, Second Lady of the United States (born 1798)
- February 18 – Walker Brooke, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1852 to 1853 (born 1813)
- March 13 – James Guthrie, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1865 to 1868 (born 1792)
- April 13 – Isaiah Rogers, architect (born 1800)
- May 23 – Alexander O. Anderson, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1840 to 1841 (born 1794)
- July 18 – Laurent Clerc, advocate for the deaf (born 1785)
- July 22 – John A. Roebling, bridge engineer (born 1806 in Prussia)
- July 30 – Isaac Toucey, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1851 to 1857 (born 1792)
- August 6 – David J. Baker, U.S. Senator from Illinois in 1830 (born 1792)
- September 10 – John Bell, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1847 to 1859 (born 1796)
- October 8 – Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States from 1853 to 1857 (born 1804)
- October 15 – William Hamlin, engraver (born 1772 in Rhode Island)
- November 11 – Hiram Bingham I, missionary to Hawaii (born 1789)
- November 21 – Benjamin Fitzpatrick, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1848 to 1849 and 1853 to 1861 (born 1802)
- December 18 – Louis Moreau Gottschalk, composer and pianist (born 1829)
- Sandy Cornish, freed slave and farmer (born 1793)
Further reading
- American Annual Cyclopaedia ... 1869, NY: D. Appleton & Co. – via HathiTrust
External links
Media related to 1869 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons
