← 1902 1901 1900 1903 in the United States → 1904 1905 1906
Decades:	1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s
See also:	History of the United States (1865–1918) Timeline of the history of the United States (1900-1930) List of years in the United States

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Events from the year1903 in the United States.

• President:Theodore Roosevelt (R-New York)
• Vice President:vacant
• Chief Justice:Melville Fuller (Illinois)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives:

David B. Henderson (R-Iowa) (until March 4)

Joseph Gurney Cannon (R-Illinois) (starting November 9)

• Congress:57th (until March 4),58th (starting March 4)

• January 4 –Topsy, a femaleAsian circus elephant, is killed by electrocution at Luna Park, Coney Island, New York City.
• January 17 – 13 days after Topsy's death, theEdison Manufacturing Company released theshort,black-and-white,silentdocumentary filmElectrocuting an Elephant, showing the footage of Topsy's electrocution.
• January 19 – The first west-east transatlantic radio broadcast is made from the United States to England (the first east-west broadcast having been made in December 1901).
• January 21 – Section ofMilitia Affairs within theAdjutant General's office.
• February 11 – TheOxnard Strike of 1903 becomes the first time in U.S. history that a labor union is formed from members of different races.
• February 14
  • Census Board within theDepartment of Commerce and Labor (Census Bureau).
  • Department of Commerce and Labor founded
  • United States Coast and Geodetic Survey transferred to theDepartment of Commerce and Labor.
• February 15 –Morris and Rose Mitchom introduce the firstteddy bear in America.
• February 23 –Cuba leasesGuantanamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity".
• March 2 – In New York City, theMartha Washington Hotel, the first hotel exclusively for women, opens.
• March 14 – TheHay–Herrán Treaty, granting the United States the right to build thePanama Canal, is ratified by theUnited States Senate. The Colombian Senate later rejects the treaty.

• May 16 – 8:05pm:Luna Park, Coney Island, New York, opens.
• June 12 – TheSigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity is founded at theUniversity of Michigan School of Music.
• June 14 –Heppner Flood of 1903: The town ofHeppner, Oregon, is nearly destroyed by a cloudburst that results in a flash flood.

• July 1 –U.S. Bureau of Fisheries within theDepartment of Commerce and Labor.
• July 6–10 –Evansville race riot in Evansville, Indiana.
• July 7 – "Mother"Mary Harris Jones starts a "Children's Crusade" ("March of the Mill Children") fromKensington, Philadelphia toOyster Bay, New York, the hometown of President Roosevelt, with banners demanding "We want to go to school and not the mines!"^[1]
• July 23 – Dr. Ernst Pfenning of Chicago becomes the first owner of aFord Model A.
• August 9 –Commanding General post replaced by that ofChief of Staff of the Army.
• September–October – A mysterious "visitor" is reported inVan Meter, Iowa.
• September 3 – Los Angeles real estate investorGriffith J. Griffith shootshis wife in the face at theArcadia Hotel inSanta Monica.
• September 11 – The first stock car event is held at theMilwaukee Mile.
• September 15 –Miami Herald first published asThe Miami Evening Record.
• September 27 – TheWreck of the Old 97 engine at Stillhouse Trestle nearDanville, Virginia, which kills nine people, inspiring a ballad and song.

• October –Frank Nelson Cole proves that 2⁶⁷-1 is composite by factoring it as 193,707,721 * 761,838,257,287 after trying for every Sunday over three years.
• October 1 – The first modernWorld Series pits theNational League's Pittsburgh against Boston of theAmerican League.
• November 2
  • Maggie L. Walker becomes the first African American woman to charter a bank.
  • Lyceum Theatre (Broadway) opens, making it the oldest continuously operating legitimate theater in New York City.
• November 4 – With the encouragement of the United States,Panama proclaims itself independent fromColombia.
• November 13 – The United States recognizes theindependence of Panama.
• November 18 – TheHay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States andPanama, giving the U.S. exclusive rights over thePanama Canal Zone.
• November 23 –Colorado GovernorJames Hamilton Peabody sends the state militia into the town ofCripple Creek to break up a miners' strike.
• December 17 –Orville Wright flies an aircraft with apetrol engine atKitty Hawk, North Carolina, in the first documented, successful, controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight.
• December 19 –Williamsburg Bridge opens.
• December 30 – Afire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago kills 600.

• TheLincoln–Lee Legion is established to promote thetemperance movement and signing of alcohol abstinence pledges by children.
• The first box ofCrayola crayons is made and sold for 5 cents. It contains 8 colors; brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and black.
• Coca-Cola removescocaine as a key ingredient from their formula; up to this time, it has contained approximately nine milligrams of cocaine per glass.

• Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)
• Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937)

• January 1 –Dwight Taylor, screenwriter and author (died1986)
• January 12 –Andrew J. Transue, politician and attorney (died1995)
• January 17 –Warren Hull, actor (died1974)
• January 27 –Otto P. Weyland, general (died1979)
• February 11 –Rex Lease, actor (died1966)
• February 12 –Lincoln Maazel, singer and actor (died2009)
• March 4 –William C. Boyd, immunochemist (died1983)
• March 7 –J. Allen Frear, Jr., United States Senator from Delaware from 1949 till 1961. (died1993)
• April 19 –Eliot Ness, American Prohibition agent (died1957)
• May 3 –Bing Crosby, early crooner, singer of the hit, "White Christmas". (died1977)
• May 6 –Toots Shor, restaurateur (died1977)
• May 24 –Lofton R. Henderson, naval aviator (died1942)
• June 12 –Emmett Hardy, jazz musician (died1925)
• June 22
  • John Dillinger, gangster in theDepression-era United States (died1934)
  • Ben Pollack, jazz drummer and bandleader (died1971)
  • Ben Robertson, novelist, journalist, and war correspondent (died1943)
• June 23 –Frances Dewey Wormser, actress, entertainer and vaudeville performer (died2008)
• June 25 –Anne Revere, actress (died1990)
• July 2 –Harwell Hamilton Harris, architect (died1990)
• July 4 –Walter Trohan, journalist (died2003)
• July 5 –Edward Woods, actor (died1983)
• August 7
  • Joseph H. Bottum, United States Senator from South Dakota from 1962 till 1963. (died1984)
  • Rudolf Ising, cartoon animator (died1992)
• August 13 –Chubby Johnson, actor (died1974)
• August 31 –Hugh Harman, cartoon animator (died1982)
• September 7 –Dorothy Marie Donnelly, poet (died1994)
• September 9 –Phyllis A. Whitney, mystery writer (died2008)^[2]
• September 27 –Leonard Barr, stand-up comic, actor, and dancer (died1980)
• September 29 –Ted de Corsia, actor (died1973)
• September 30 –Lyle Goodhue, chemist, inventor and entomologist (died1981)
• October 6 –Brien McMahon, United States Senator from Connecticut from 1945 till 1952. (died1952)
• October 23 –Thaddeus B. Hurd, architect and historian (died1989)
• October 25
  • Katharine Byron, politician (died1976)
  • Harry Shoulberg, painter (died1995)
• October 26 –Bill Allington, baseball player and manager (died1966)
• November 4 –Robert Emerson, scientist (died1959)
• November 29 –E. Harold Munn, temperance movement leader and presidential candidate (died1992)
• December 12 –Dagmar Nordstrom, composer and pianist (died1976)
• December 29 –Clyde McCoy, jazz trumpeter (died1990)

• January 4
  • Gulstan Ropert, missionary (born1839)
  • Topsy, elephant (born1875)
• January 28 –John B. Allen, U.S. Senator from Washington from 1889 to 1893 (born1845)
• February 11 –Rachel Crane Mather, educator (born1823)
• February 26 –Richard Jordan Gatling, inventor (born1818)
• March 11 –Lou Graham, wealthy business woman and madame from Germany (born1857 in Germany)
• March 16 –Roy Bean, justice of the peace (born1825)^[3]
• March 20 –Charles Godfrey Leland, humorist, folklorist and poet (born1824)
• March 29 –Gustavus Franklin Swift, businessman (born1839)
• April 22 –Alexander Ramsey, 2nd Governor of Minnesota from 1860 to 1863 and U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1863 to 1875 (born1815)
• April 28 –Josiah Willard Gibbs, physical chemist (born1839)
• April 29 –Stuart Robson, stage actor and comedian (born1836)
• May 29 –Bruce Price, architect (born1845)
• July 2 –Ed Delahanty, baseball player (born1867)
• July 3 –Harriet Lane, actingFirst Lady of the United States duringJames Buchanan's presidency (born1830)
• July 27 –Frederick J. Kimball, civil engineer (born1844)
• August 1 –Calamity Jane,frontierswoman (born1852)
• August 28 –Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape architect, journalist, social critic and public administrator (born1822)
• September 23 –Charles B. Farwell, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1887 to 1891 (born1823)
• September 28 –Edward Merritt Hughes, naval officer (b.1850)
• October 6 –Wilson S. Bissell, politician,United States Postmaster General (born1847)
• October 20 –Thomas Vincent Welch, politician (born1850)
• November 3 –Eliza Hendricks,Second Lady of the United States as wife ofThomas A. Hendricks (born1823)
• November 20 –Tom Horn, gunfighter and outlaw (born1860)
• December 13 –Alexander McDonald, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1868 to 1871 (born1832)
• December 23 –Middleton P. Barrow, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1882 to 1883 (born1839)

• List of American films of 1903
• Timeline of United States history (1900–1929)

• "Domestic Chronology",Statistician and Economist, San Francisco: Louis P. McCarty, 1905, pp. 227–347,hdl:2027/uc1.b3142275 – via HathiTrust. (Covers events May 1898 – June 1905)

• Media related to1903 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons

• 1903 in the United States
• 1900s in the United States
• 1903 by country
• 1903 in North America
• Years of the 20th century in the United States

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