Events from the year 1902 in the United States.
Incumbents
State governments
Events
JanuaryâÂÂMarch
- January 3
- The first college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, is held in Pasadena, California.
- Nathan Stubblefield demonstrates his wireless telephone device in Kentucky.
- January 8 – A train collision in the New York Central Railroad's Park Avenue Tunnel kills 17, injures 38, and leads to increased demand for electric trains.
- January 28 – The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, D.C., to promote scientific research with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.
- February 9 – Fire levels 26 city blocks of Jersey City, New Jersey.
- February 18 – U.S. President Roosevelt prosecutes the Northern Securities Company for violation of the antitrust Sherman Act.
- February 22 – Senators Benjamin Tillman and John L. McLaurin, both Democrats of South Carolina, have a fist fight while Congress is in session. Both Tillman and McLaurin are censured by the Senate on February 28.
- February – A commission on yellow fever announces that the disease is carried by mosquitoes.
- March 10 – A Circuit Court decision ends Thomas Edison's monopoly on 35 mm movie film technology.
- March 22 – International Harvester formed by merger of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, Deering Harvester Company and other companies.
AprilâÂÂJune
- April 2 – The Electric Theatre, the first movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles, California.
- April 7 – The Texas Oil Company Texaco is founded.
- April 14 – The first J. C. Penney department store opens in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
- May 15 – It is claimed that in a field outside Grass Valley, California, Lyman Gilmore achieves flight in a powered airplane (a steam-powered glider). There is no surviving evidence to verify this claim.
- May 20 – Cuba gains independence from the United States.
- May 22 – Crater Lake National Park is established in Oregon.
- June 2 – The coal strike of 1902 begins in the anthracite coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania.
- June 13 – Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, predecessor of global consumer goods brand 3M, begins trading as a mining venture at Two Harbors.
- June 15 – The New York Central railroad inaugurates the 20th Century Limited passenger train between Chicago and Grand Central Terminal in New York City.
- June 17 – The Newlands Reclamation Act funds irrigation projects for the arid lands of 17 states in the American West.
- June 23 – Nurse Jane Toppan is convicted on 12 counts of murder (she admits to 31) in Massachusetts but is found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed for life.
- June 24 – Target Corporation, the department store chain, is founded.
JulyâÂÂSeptember
OctoberâÂÂDecember
Undated
Ongoing
Births
- January 4 – John A. McCone, CIA Director from 1961 to 1965 (died 1991)
- January 9 – Ann Nixon Cooper, African-American civil rights activist (died 2009)
- January 19 – Marjorie Daw, actress (died 1979)
- January 24 – E. A. Speiser, biblical scholar (died 1965)
- February 6 – George Brunies, jazz trombonist (died 1974)
- February 13 – Blair Moody, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1951 to 1952 (died 1954)
- February 19
- Kay Boyle, writer (died 1992)
- Eddie Peabody, musician (died 1970)
- February 27
- Ethelda Bleibtrey, Olympic swimmer (died 1978)
- John Steinbeck, novelist (died 1968)
- March 4 – Russell Reeder, soldier and author (d. 1998)
- March 16 – Leon Roppolo, jazz clarinetist (died 1943)
- March 17 – Bobby Jones, amateur golfer (died 1971)
- March 21 – Al Smith, cartoonist (died 1986)
- March 23 – Philip Ober, actor (died 1982)
- March 24 – Thomas E. Dewey, 47th Governor of New York, 1948 Republican presidential nominee (died 1971)
- April 11 – Quentin Reynolds, journalist (died 1965)
- April 2 – David Worth Clark, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1939 to 1945 (died 1955)
- April 27 – Harry Stockwell, actor and singer (died 1984)
- May 6 – Harry Golden, Ukrainian-born American journalist (died 1981)
- May 11 – Dick Curtis, actor (died 1952)
- May 15 – Richard J. Daley, Mayor of Chicago from 1956 (died 1976)
- May 21 – Earl Averill, baseball player (died 1983)
- May 24 – Wilbur Hatch, composer (died 1969)
- May 27 РGladys Pearl Baker, n̩e Monroe, film editor and mother of actress Marilyn Monroe (died 1984)
- June 2
- James T. Berryman, political cartoonist (died 1971)
- Rosa Rio, organist and composer (died 2010)
- June 7 – Hope Summers, screen character actress (died 1979)
- June 25 – Ralph Erickson, baseball pitcher (died 2002)
- July 4
- Vince Barnett, actor (died 1977)
- George Murphy, U.S. Senator from California from 1965 to 1971 (died 1992)
- July 7
- Richard Barrett Lowe, governor of Guam and American Samoa (died 1972)
- Ted Radcliffe, baseball player (died 2005)
- July 16 – Andrew L. Stone, screenwriter, director and producer (died 1999)
- July 21 – Joseph Kesselring, playwright (died 1967)
- July 31 – Randolph Edgar Haugan, author, editor and publisher (died 1985)
- August 1 – Harold D. Schuster, film director (died 1986)
- August 4 – Clara Peller, actress (died 1987)
- August 18 – Margaret Murie, environmentalist and author
- August 22 – Omer Poos, United States district judge from 1958 to 1976 (died 1976)
- September 7 – Roy Barcroft, actor (died 1969)
- October 3 – Waldo McBurney, America's oldest worker (died 2009)
- October 5 – Ray Kroc, businessman, founder of McDonald's (died 1984)
- October 13 – Arna Wendell Bontemps, writer (died 1973)
- October 21 – Eddy Hamel, soccer player (d. 1943 in Auschwitz)
- October 25 – Henry Steele Commager, historian (died 1998)
- November 14 – Pua Kealoha, Olympic swimmer (died 1989)
- November 19 – Trevor Bardette, actor (died 1977)
- November 23 – Aaron Bank, colonel (died 2004)
- December 5 – Strom Thurmond, 103rd Governor of South Carolina (died 2003)
- December 8 – Oswald Jacoby, bridge player (died 1984)
- December 9 – Margaret Hamilton, actress (died 1985)
- December 14 – Frances Bavier, stage and television actress (died 1989)
- December 15 – Bernard L. Austin, admiral (died 1979)
- December 23 – Norman Maclean, author (died 1990)
- December 27 – Carman Maxwell, animator and voice actor (died 1987)
- December 28 – Mortimer Adler, philosopher (died 2001)
Deaths
- January 15 – Alpheus Hyatt, zoologist and paleontologist (born 1838)
- February 18 – Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Co. (born 1812)
- March 12 – John Peter Altgeld, 20th Governor of Illinois (born 1847)
- March 14 – Daniel H. Reynolds, Confederate Brigadier General (born 1832)
- April 3 – Esther Hobart Morris, first women justice of the peace in the United States (born 1814)
- April 27 – Julius Sterling Morton, 3rd United States Secretary of Agriculture (born 1832)
- May 5 – Bret Harte, short-story writer and poet (born 1836)
- May 26 – Almon Brown Strowger, inventor (born 1839)
- June 5 – Louis J. Weichmann, chief witness for the prosecution in the trial of the assassins of Abraham Lincoln (born 1842)
- July 27 – Packy Dillon, baseball player (born 1853)
- August 10 – James McMillan, Canadian-born U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1889 to 1902 (born 1838)
- September 26 – Levi Strauss, founder of Levi Strauss & Co. (born 1829)
- October 26 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, suffragist (born 1815)
- November 22 – Walter Reed, Army physician (born 1851)
- November 27 – George S. Cook, prominent early American photographer (born 1819)
- November 29 – John Elliott Ward, politician and diplomat (born 1814)
- December 4 – Charles Dow, founder of Dow Jones & Company and The Wall Street Journal (born 1851)
- December 7 – Thomas Nast, political cartoonist (born 1840)
- December 14 – Julia Grant, First Lady of the United States (born 1826)
- December 22 – Dwight M. Sabin, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1883 to 1889 (born 1843)
- December 26 – Mary Hartwell Catherwood, author and poet (born 1849)
See also
References
Further reading
- . (Covers events May 1898-June 1905)
External links