← 1890 1889 1888 1891 in the United States → 1892 1893 1894
Decades:	1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s
See also:	History of the United States (1865–1918) Timeline of United States history (1860–1899) List of years in the United States

Events from the year1891 in the United States.

• President:Benjamin Harrison (R-Indiana)
• Vice President:Levi P. Morton (R-New York)
• Chief Justice:Melville Fuller (Illinois)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives:

Thomas Brackett Reed (R-Maine) (until March 4)

Charles Frederick Crisp (D-Georgia) (starting December 8)

• Congress:51st (until March 4),52nd (starting March 4)

• January 2 – A. L. Drummond ofNew York is appointed Chief of the Treasury Secret Service.
• January 5 –Henry B. Brown, ofMichigan, is sworn in as anAssociate Justice of theSupreme Court.
• January 13 – InCalifornia,Leland Stanford (Rep.) re-electedSenator.
• January 17 –George Bancroft dies atWashington DC at age 91, all government buildings flying flags lower to half mast until after the funeral.
• January 20 –Jim Hogg becomes the first nativeTexan to be governor of that state.
• January 27 –Mammoth Mine disaster
• January 29 –Liliuokalani is proclaimed Queen ofHawaii.
• March 3
  • TheInternational Copyright Act of 1891 is passed by theFifty-first United States Congress.
  • TheOcean Mail Act of 1891 is passed by the Fifty-first United States Congress, providing subsidies to steamships for the carrying of mails between US and foreign ports.
  • Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, predecessor ofShoshone National Forest, inWyoming is established as the firstUnited States National Forest.
• March 14 – InNew Orleans, alynch mob storms the Old Parish Prison andlynches 11 Italian Americans who had been found not guilty of the murder of Police ChiefDavid Hennessy.
• March 30 –Shoshone National Forest is established inWyoming, the firstU.S. National Forest.
• April 1 – TheWrigley Company is founded inChicago.
• May 5 – The Music Hall inNew York (later known asCarnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, withTchaikovsky as guest conductor.
• May 20 –Thomas Edison's prototypekinetoscope is first displayed at Edison's Laboratory, for a convention of the National Federation of Women's Clubs.
• June –Profitable Advertising was established in Boston
• June 1 – TheJohnstown Inclined Plane opens inJohnstown, Pennsylvania.
• June 21 – First long-distance transmission ofalternating current by the Ames power plant nearTelluride, Colorado by Lucien and Paul Nunn.
• September 23 –California Institute of Technology inCalifornia is founded.
• October 1 –Stanford University inCalifornia opens its doors.
• October 16 –White River National Forest is established inColorado.
• November 28 – TheInternational Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is organized inSt. Louis, Missouri.
• December 17 –Drexel University is inaugurated as the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry inPhiladelphia.

• Seattle University is established as the Immaculate Conception school.
• Marie Owens becomes (probably) the first female police officer in the U.S., with theChicago Police Department.
• Jesse W. Reno invents the first workingescalator, installed as an attraction at the Old Iron Pier,Coney Island, New York City.

• Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
• Gay Nineties (1890–1899)
• Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)
• Garza Revolution in Texas and Mexico (1891–1893)

• January 1 –Charles Bickford, actor (died1967)
• January 2 –Charles P. Thompson, actor (died1979)
• January 7 –Zora Neale Hurston, Harlem Renaissance writer (died1960)
• January 25 –Wellman Braud, jazz bassist (died1966)
• January 28 –Bill Doak, baseball player (died1954)
• January 30 –Walter Beech, aviator and aircraft manufacturer (died1950)
• February 10 –Elliot Paul, writer (died1958)
• February 12 –Eugene Millikin, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1941 to 1957 (died1958)
• February 13 –Grant Wood, painter (died1942)
• February 15 –Henry J. Knauf, politician (died1950)
• March 10 –Sam Jaffe, actor (died1984)
• March 19 –Earl Warren,Chief Justice of the United States (died1974)
• March 26 –Will Wright, actor (died1962)
• April 13 –Nella Larsen, novelist (died1964)
• April 15 –Wallace Reid, actor (died1923)
• April 19 –W. Alton Jones, industrialist and philanthropist (died1962)
• April 26 –Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, mistress of Franklin D. Roosevelt (died1948)
• May 21 –John Peale Bishop, writer (died1944)
• May 22 –Eddie Edwards, jazz trombonist (died1963)
• May 24 –William F. Albright, archeologist and Biblical scholar (died1971)
• May 26 –
  • Maxwell Bodenheim, poet and novelist (murdered1954)
  • Mamie Smith, African American blues singer (died1946)
• May 30 –Ben Bernie, bandleader (died1943)
• June 3 –Jim Tully, vagabond, pugilist and writer (died1947)
• June 8 –Audrey Munson, model and silent film actress (died1996)
• June 9 –Cole Porter, composer and songwriter (died1964)
• June 28
  • Esther Forbes, historical fiction writer (died1967)
  • Carl Panzram, serial killer and rapist (executed1930)
• June 30 –Man Mountain Dean, wrestler (died1953)

• July 5 –John Howard Northrop, biochemist, winner of theNobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946 (suicide1987)
• July 10 –Edith Quimby, medical researcher and physicist (died1982)
• July 16 –Blossom Seeley, singer and vaudeville performer (died1974)
• July 18 –Billy Sullivan, actor (died1946)
• July 26 –William J. Connors, politician (died1961)
• August 1 –Edward Streeter, humorist (died1976)
• August 15 –Chief Yowlachie, Native American actor (died1966)
• August 29 –Joyce Hall, founder ofHallmark Cards (died1982)
• September 3 –Annie Elizabeth Delany, African American physician and author (died1995)
• September 28 –Myrtle Gonzalez, silent film actress (died1918)
• October 7 –Charles R. Chickering, illustrator (died1970)
• October 25 –Charles Coughlin, antisemitic radio host andCatholic priest (died1979)
• October 29 –Fanny Brice, actress, comedian and singer (died1951)
• November 2 –David Townsend, art director (died1935)
• November 7 –Miriam Cooper, silent film actress (died1976)
• November 10 –Carl Stalling, cartoon film composer (died1972)
• November 15 –Vincent Astor, philanthropist (died1959)
• November 20 –Leon Cadore, baseball pitcher (died1958)
• December 14
  • Katherine MacDonald, silent film actress (died1956)
  • Lester Melrose, record producer of theChicago blues genre (died1968)
• December 26 –Henry Miller, novelist (died1980)

• January 5 –Emma Abbott, operatic soprano (born1850)
• January 17 –George Bancroft, historian (born1800)
• January 29 –William Windom, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1870 to 1881 and from 1881 to 1883 (born1827)
• February 14 –William Tecumseh Sherman, Civil War general (born1820)
• February 21 –James Timberlake, law enforcement officer (born1846)
• February 28 –George Hearst, U.S. Senator from California from 1887 to 1891 (born1820)
• March 6
  • George M. Chilcott, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1882 to 1883 (born1828)
  • Joshua Hill, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1871 to 1873 (born1812)
• March 21 –Joseph E. Johnston,Confederate Army general (born1807)
• April 2 –Albert Pike, Confederate military officer, attorney, writer and Freemason (born1809)
• April 7 –P. T. Barnum, showman, businessman, and politician (b.1810)
• April 14 –Annie Nowlin Savery, suffragist (born1831 in the United Kingdom)
• June 9 –Henry Edwards,entomologist and actor (born1827 in the United Kingdom)
• June 17 –Harrison Ludington, 13th Governor of Wisconsin from 1876 to 1878 (born 1812)
• June 21 –Joseph E. McDonald, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1875 to 1881 (born1819)
• July 4 –Hannibal Hamlin, 15thvice president of the United States from 1861 to 1865 (born1809)
• August 5 –Thomas S. Bocock, U.S. Congressman, Speaker of theConfederate States House of Representatives (born1815)
• August 12 –James Russell Lowell, Romantic poet, critic, satirist, writer, diplomat and abolitionist (born1819)
• August 14
  • John Henry Hopkins Jr., clergyman and hymnist (born1820)
  • Sarah Childress Polk,First Lady of the U.S. (born1803)
• August 27 –Samuel C. Pomeroy, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1861 to 1873 (born1816)
• September 10 –Charles B. Clark, politician and entrepreneur (born1844)
• September 28 –Herman Melville, novelist, short story writer and poet (born1819)
• October 16 –Sarah Winnemucca,Northern Paiute author, activist and educator (born1844)
• November 6 –J. Gregory Smith, Vermont governor (born1818)
• November 17 –George H. Cooper, admiral (born1821)
• December 7 –Mary Crane, activist; mother of writerStephen Crane (born1827)
• December 12 –Julia A. Ames, reformer (born1861)
• December 20 –Preston B. Plumb, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1877 to 1891 (born1837)
• December 29 –Marion McKinley Bovard, academic administrator, 1st president of theUniversity of Southern California (born1847)

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

• Media related to1891 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons

• 1891 in the United States
• 1890s in the United States
• 1891 by country
• 1891 in North America
• Years of the 19th century in the United States

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• Commons category link from Wikidata