1873 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: Ulysses S. Grant
• Vice President: Schuyler Colfax , Henry Wilson
• Chief Justice: Salmon P. Chase
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: James G. Blaine
• Congress: 42nd, 43rd

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

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 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.
• March 15 - The Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity is founded at the Massachusetts Agricultural College.
• March 22 - Emancipation Day for Puerto Rico: Slaves are freed.

  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.
• 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 1 - 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.

  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.
• 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.
• 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 Fraternity 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.
• Eliza Daniel Stewart organizes the Woman's Temperance League in Osborn, Ohio.

  Ongoing

• Reconstruction era
• Gilded Age
• Depression of 1873–79

  Births

• January 2 - John M. Robsion, U.S. Senator from Kentucky in 1930
• January 4 - Blanche Walsh, stage and screen actress
• January 8 - Grace Van Studdiford, stage actress and opera singer
• January 9 - Thomas Curtis, hurdler
• February 4 - Joel R. P. Pringle, admiral
• February 11 - Louis Charles Christopher Krieger, mycologist
• March 3 - William Green, labor leader
• March 5 - Thomas Harrison Montgomery, Jr., zoologist and cell biologist
• March 29 - Billy Quirk, silent film actor
• April 7 - John McGraw, baseball player and manager
• April 13 - John W. Davis, politician, diplomat and lawyer
• May 5 - Leon Czolgosz, assassin of President William McKinley
• May 9
• *Anton Cermak, Mayor of Chicago
• *Lois Irene Marshall, née Kimsey, Second Lady of the United States as wife of Thomas R. Marshall
• April 22 - Ellen Glasgow, novelist
• July 6 - Ethel Sands, painter
• July 11 - Nat M. Wills, vaudeville entertainer
• August 3 - Alexander Posey, Native American poet, journalist, humorist and politician
• August 5 - Joseph Russell Knowland, politician and newspaperman
• August 10 - William Ernest Hocking, philosopher
• August 11 - J. Rosamond Johnson, African American composer and singer
• August 17 - John A. Sampson, gynecologist
• August 18 - Otto Harbach, lyricist
• August 21 - Harry T. Morey, stage and screen actor
• August 25 - Blanche Bates, stage and screen actress
• August 26 - Lee de Forest, inventor
• September 2 - Bessie Van Vorst, campaigning journalist
• September 5 - Cornelius Vanderbilt III, military officer, inventor and engineer
• September 8 - David O. McKay, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• September 14 - Josiah Bailey, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1931 to 1946
• September 21 - Papa Jack Laine, New Orleans brass band leader
• October 3 - Emily Post, etiquette expert
• October 8 - Ma Barker, née Kate Clark, matriarch of the Barker–Karpis gang
• October 9 - Charles Rudolph Walgreen, businessman
• October 10 - George Cabot Lodge, poet
• October 14 - Ray Ewry, field athlete
• October 17 - William Luther Hill, U.S. Senator from Florida in 1936
• October 18 - Harris Laning, admiral
• October 19 - Bart King, cricketer
• October 29 - Lester J. Dickinson, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1931 to 1937
• November 10 - David Lynn, architect, Architect of the Capitol from 1923 to 1954
• November 16 - W. C. Handy, African American composer, "father of the Blues"
• November 28 - Frank Phillips, oil executive
• December 7 - Willa Cather, novelist
• December 12 - Lola Ridge, poet
• December 30 - Al Smith, politician
• Undated - Thomas Chrostwaite, educator

  Deaths

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