1896 in the United States

Events from the year 1896 in the United States.

• President: Grover Cleveland (D-New York)
• Vice President: Adlai E. Stevenson I (D-Illinois)
• Chief Justice: Melville Fuller (Illinois)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Thomas Brackett Reed (R-Maine)
• Congress: 54th

• January 4 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state (see History of Utah).
• February 6–August 12 – Yaqui Uprising in Arizona and Mexico.
• March 23 – The New York State Legislature passes the Raines Law, restricting Sunday alcoholic beverage sales to hotels.

• April 9 – The National Farm School (later Delaware Valley College) is chartered in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
• May 18 – Plessy v. Ferguson: The U.S. Supreme Court introduces the "separate but equal" doctrine and upholds racial segregation.
• May 26 – Eleven years after its foundation, a group of 12 purely industrial stocks are chosen to form the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The index is composed entirely of industrial shares for the first time.^[1]
• May 26 – Campbell Axe Murders - James Dunham murders his wife, her family and two of their servants at their family farm in Campbell, California.
• May 27 – 1896 St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado: The costliest and third deadliest tornado in U.S. history levels a mile wide swath of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, incurring over $10,000,000 in damages at contemporaneous prices,^[2] killing more than 255 and injuring over 1,000 people.
• June 4 – The Ford Quadricycle, the first Ford vehicle ever developed, is completed, eventually leading Henry Ford to build the empire that "put America on wheels".
• June 28 – Twin Shaft Disaster: An explosion in the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston City, Pennsylvania results in a massive cave-in that kills 58 coal miners.^[3][4][5]

• July 9 – William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech at the Democratic National Convention, which nominates him for President of the United States.
• July 30 – Shortly after 6:30 pm, at a crossing just west of Atlantic City, New Jersey, two trains collide, crushing five loaded passenger coaches, killing 50 and seriously injuring approximately 60, in the 1896 Atlantic City rail crash.
• August 9 – Joseph F. Johnston is elected the 30th governor of Alabama defeating Albert Taylor Goodwyn.
• September 15 – The Crash at Crush train wreck stunt is held in Texas.

• October 16 – The design of the flag of Knoxville, Tennessee is officially approved by the Knoxville City Council.
• October 30 – Augusta, Kentucky: The Augusta High School cornerstone is laid, marking the end of the Augusta Methodist College.
• November 3 – U.S. presidential election, 1896: Republican William McKinley defeats William Jennings Bryan. This is later regarded as a realigning election, starting the Fourth Party System in which Republicans dominate politics until 1913.
• November 30 – The St. Augustine Monster, a large carcass later postulated to be the remains of a gigantic octopus, is found washed ashore near St. Augustine, Florida.
• December 1 – Joseph F. Johnston is sworn in as the 30th governor of Alabama replacing William C. Oates.^[6]
• December 7 – The 54th United States Congress began its second session.
• December 25 – John Philip Sousa composes his magnum opus, the "Stars and Stripes Forever".

• The New York Telephone Company is formed.
• Sperry & Hutchinson begin offering S&H Green Stamps to U.S. retailers.

• Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
• Gay Nineties (1890–1899)
• Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)

• January 4 – Everett Dirksen, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1951 to 1969 (died 1969)
• January 8 – Arthur Ford, psychic, founded the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship (died 1971)
• January 14 – John Dos Passos, novelist (died 1970)
• January 18 – C. M. Eddy, Jr., author (died 1967)
• January 20 – George Burns, actor and singer (died 1996)
• January 21 – J. Carrol Naish, actor (died 1973)
• January 31
  • Olive Carey, actress (died 1988)
  • Lewis Strauss, chair of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (died 1974)
• February 7 – Bonner Fellers, United States Army general (died 1973)
• February 21 – Homa J. Porter, Texas businessman and political activist (died 1986)
• February 25 – John Little McClellan, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1943 to 1977 (died 1977)
• February 28 – Philip Showalter Hench, physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1950 (died 1965)
• February 29 – William A. Wellman, film director (died 1975)
• March 1 – Harry Winston, diamond dealer (died 1978)
• March 23 – Edwin Eugene Aldrin, aviator and army colonel (died 1974)
• April 8 – Yip Harburg, lyricist (died 1981)
• April 21 – Ralph Hungerford, 33rd Governor of American Samoa (died 1977)
• April 26 – Edward John Thye, 26th Governor of Minnesota from 1943 to 1947 and U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1947 to 1959 (died 1969)
• May 30 – Howard Hawks, film director (died 1977)
• June 7
  • Douglas Campbell, World War I flying ace (died 1990)
  • Robert S. Mulliken, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1966 (died 1986)
• June 19 – Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Duchess of Windsor, socialite (died 1986 in France)
• June 28 – Constance Binney, American actress (died 1989)
• July 8 – James B. Wilson, American footballer (died 1986)
• July 9
  • Thomas Barlow, basketball player (died 1983)
  • Cullen Landis, film actor and director (died 1975)
• July 15 – Gladys Edgerly Bates, sculptor (died 2003)
• July 18
  • Patrick O'Boyle, prelate (died 1987)
  • Thelma Payne, diver (died 1988)
• July 19
  • Percy Spencer, inventor of the microwave oven (died 1969)
  • Stafford L. Warren, physician and radiologist, inventor of the mammogram (died 1981)
• July 21
  • Bourke B. Hickenlooper, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1945 to 1969 (died 1971)
  • Gladys Hulette, actress (died 1991)
• July 28 – Barbara La Marr, born Reatha Dale Watson, silent film actress (died 1926)
• August 15 – Paul Outerbridge, photographer (died 1958)
• August 22 – W. E. Lawrence, actor (died 1947)
• August 26 – Besse Cooper, supercentenarian (died 2012)
• September 8 – Howard Dietz, lyricist (died 1983)
• September 10 – Adele Astaire, dancer and singer (died 1981)
• September 15 – Robert B. McClure, general (died 1973)
• September 21 – Walter Breuning, supercentenarian; last known surviving male born in 1896 (died 2011)
• September 24 – F. Scott Fitzgerald, author known for the novel The Great Gatsby (died 1940)
• September 29 – George H. Bender, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 1954 to 1957 (died 1961)
• October 22 – Earle C. Clements, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1950 to 1957 (died 1985)
• October 30 – Ruth Gordon, actress and screenwriter (died 1985)
• November 8 – Bucky Harris, baseball player (died 1977)
• November 14 – Mamie Eisenhower, née Doud, First Lady of the United States as wife of Dwight D. Eisenhower (died 1979)
• November 16 – Jim Jordan, actor (died 1988)
• November 25
  • Priscilla Dean, silent film actress (died 1987)
  • Jessie Royce Landis, actress (died 1972)
  • Virgil Thomson, composer (died 1989)
• December 6 – Ira Gershwin, lyricist (died 1983)
• December 17 – Robert Francis Anthony Studds, admiral and engineer, fourth Director of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (died 1962)
• December 21 – Leroy Robertson, composer and educator (died 1971)
• Date unknown
  • John E. Yunker, North Dakota public servant and politician (died 1968)

• January 6 – Thomas W. Knox, author and journalist (born 1835)
• January 11 – George G. Wright, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1871 to 1877 (born 1820)
• January 15 – Mathew B. Brady, pioneering photographer (born 1822)
• January 19 – Bernhard Gillam, political cartoonist (born 1856)
• February 7 – William Hayden English, politician (born 1822)
• February 22 – George D. Robinson, lawyer and politician, 34th Governor of Massachusetts (born 1834)
• February 23 – George Davis, Confederate States Senator from North Carolina, 4th and last Confederate States Attorney General (born 1820)
• February 25 – Joseph P. Fyffe, admiral (born 1832)
• March 19 – R. Edward Earll, ichthyologist and museum curator (b. 1853)
• April 9 – Gustav Koerner, statesman (born 1809 in Frankfurt)
• April 19 – Arthur I. Boreman, U.S. Senator from West Virginia from 1869 to 1875 (born 1823)
• May 5 – Jacob Fjelde, sculptor (born 1855 in Norway)
• May 7 – Herman Webster Mudgett, alias H. H. Holmes, serial killer, executed (born 1861)
• May 11 – Henry Cuyler Bunner, novelist and poet (born 1855)
• May 13 – Nora Perry, poet, journalist and children's author (born 1831)
• May 31 – Homer V. M. Miller, U.S. Senator in Georgia from 1871 (born 1814)
• June 2 – Ozora P. Stearns, U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1871 (born 1831)
• June 4 – Austin Corbin, president of Long Island Rail Road (born 1827)
• June 12 – Thomas P. Leathers, steamboat captain (born 1816)
• June 13 – Alpheus Felch, 5th Governor of Michigan from 1846 till 1847 and U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1847 to 1853 (born 1804)
• June 25 – Lyman Trumbull, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1855 to 1873 (born 1813)
• July 1 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and author best known for the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (born 1811)
• July 14 – Luther Whiting Mason, music educator (born 1818)
• July 19 – Abraham H. Cannon, Mormon apostle (born 1859)
• July 22 – George Wallace Jones, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1848 till 1859 (born 1804)
• August 9 – Alonzo J. Edgerton, U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1881 (born 1827)
• August 14 – Olin Levi Warner, sculptor (born 1844)
• August 17 – Mary Abigail Dodge (Gail Hamilton), essayist (born 1833)
• October 13 – Thomas W. Ferry, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1871 till 1883 (born 1827)
• October 23 – Columbus Delano, statesman (born 1809)
• November 22 – George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., inventor of the Ferris wheel, typhoid (born 1859)
• Date unknown – Asahel C. Beckwith, U.S. Senator from Wyoming in 1893 (born 1827)

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

• Media related to 1896 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons