1890 In The United States

Federal government

• 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)
• Congress: 51st

January–June

• January–June period – George W. Johnson becomes the first African American to record phonograph cylinders, in New York.
• January 1 – In Michigan, the wooden steamer Mackinaw burns in a fire on the Black River.
• January 2 – Alice Sanger becomes the first female staffer in the White House.
• January 22 – The United Mine Workers is founded.
• January 25 – Journalist Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.
• February 24 – Chicago is selected to host the Columbian Exposition.
• March 2–7 – The Cherry Creek Campaign occurs in Arizona Territory.
• March 3 – The first American football game in Ohio State University history is played in Delaware, Ohio against Ohio Wesleyan University; Ohio State wins 20–14.
• March 8 – North Dakota State University is founded in Fargo, North Dakota.
• March 27 – A tornado strikes Louisville, Kentucky, killing 76 people and injuring 200.
• March 28 – Washington State University is founded in Pullman, Washington.
• May – National American Woman Suffrage Association established.
• May 2 – Oklahoma Territory is organized.
• May 31 – The 5-story skylight Cleveland Arcade opens in Cleveland, Ohio.
• June 1 – The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to record census returns using punched card input, a landmark in the history of computing hardware. Hollerith's company eventually becomes IBM.
• June 12 – On Lake Huron (Michigan), the wooden steamer Ryan is lost near Thunder Bay Island.
• June 20 – The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde published by Philadelphia-based Lippincott's Monthly Magazine.

July–December

 

 

• July 2 – The Sherman Antitrust Act becomes U.S. law.
• July 3 – Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state (see History of Idaho).
• July 10 – Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state (see History of Wyoming).
• July 13 – In Minnesota, storms result in the Sea Wing disaster on Lake Pepin killing 98.
• August 6 – At Auburn Prison in New York, William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed in the electric chair.
• August 10 – In Boston, Irish-born poet John Boyle O'Reilly dies suddenly, aged 46. The death triggers a mass outpouring of grief and tributes across the country and the world.
• September – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Wilford Woodruff issues the "1890 Manifesto" officially advising against any future polygamy in the Church.
• September 25 – Sequoia National Park created.
• October 1 – Yosemite National Park created.
• October 11 – In Washington, D.C., the Daughters of the American Revolution is founded.
• October 13
  • The Delta Chi fraternity is founded by 11 law students at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
  • On Lake Huron, the schooner J. F. Warner is lost in Thunder Bay (Michigan).
• November 29 – In West Point, New York, the United States Navy defeats the United States Army 24–0 in the first Army–Navy football game.
• December 24 – The Oklahoma territorial legislature establishes three institutions of higher learning University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, and University of Central Oklahoma.
• December 29 – Wounded Knee Massacre: Near Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment tries to disarm a Native American camp and shooting starts. 153 Lakota Sioux and 25 troops are killed; about 150 flee the scene.

Undated

• The United States city of Boise, Idaho drills the first geothermal well.
• The corrugated cardboard box is invented by Robert Gair, a Brooklyn printer who developed production of paper-board boxes in 1879.
• The Demarest Building, a commercial building on Fifth Avenue in New York City, is completed as the first with an electric elevator (installed by Otis).
• The march "High School Cadets" is written by John Philip Sousa.
• Brown trout are introduced into the upper Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park.
• The Ohio Northern University Marching Band is founded as a part of the military department. Becoming known as the “Star of Northwest Ohio”, they will perform regularly each football season and travel across the world through their sponsoring university.

Ongoing

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

• September 30 – The Brooklyn Bridegrooms clinch the National League pennant.

 

• January 4 – Victor Adamson, Western film director, producer, screenwriter and actor (died 1972)
• January 21 – Wesley Englehorn, American football player (died 1993)
• January 22 – Fred M. Vinson, 13th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (died 1953)
• January 28 – Robert Franklin Stroud, "Birdman of Alcatraz" (died 1963)
• February 18
  • Edward Arnold, actor (died 1956)
  • Adolphe Menjou, film actor (died 1963)
• February 24 – Marjorie Main, character actress (died 1975)
• February 27
  • Freddie Keppard, jazz cornet player (died 1933)
  • Art Smith, pilot (died in aviation accident 1926)
• March 11 – Vannevar Bush, science administrator (died 1974)
• March 21 – C. Douglass Buck, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1943 to 1949 (died 1965)
• March 28 – Paul Whiteman, bandleader (died 1967)
• April 7
  • Marjory Stoneman Douglas, conservationist and writer (died 1998)
  • Harry W. Hill, admiral (died 1971)
• April 13 – Frank Murphy, politician and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (died 1949)
• April 23 – Adelbert Ford, psychologist (died 1976)
• May 1 – Laurence Wild, basketball player and 30th Governor of American Samoa (died 1971)
• May 11 – Woodall Rodgers, lawyer and politician, Mayor of Dallas (died 1961)
• May 15 – Katherine Anne Porter, author (died 1980)
• June 1 – Frank Morgan, character actor (died 1949)
• June 12 – Junius Matthews, actor (died 1978)
• June 26
  • Oscar C. Badger II, admiral (died 1958)
  • Jeanne Eagels, actress (died 1929)
• June 28 – William H. P. Blandy, admiral (d. 1954)
• June 30 – Gertrude McCoy, actress (d. 1967)
• July 22 – Rose Kennedy, philanthropist and matriarch of the Kennedy family (died 1995)
• July 26 – Daniel J. Callaghan, admiral (killed in action 1942)
• August 11 – Lillian Holley, sheriff (d. 1994)
• August 20 – H. P. Lovecraft, horror fiction author (died 1937)
• September 9 – Colonel Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (died 1980)
• September 20 – Jelly Roll Morton, jazz pianist, composer and bandleader (died 1941)
• September 24 – Allen J. Ellender, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1937 to 1972 (died 1972)
• October 1
  • Alice Joyce, silent film actress (died 1955)
  • Blanche Oelrichs, poet, second wife of John Barrymore (died 1950)
• October 2 – Groucho Marx, comedian (died 1977)
• October 8 – Eddie Rickenbacker, race car driver and World War I fighter pilot (died 1973)
• October 12 – Katherine Corri Harris, socialite and actress, first wife of John Barrymore (died 1927)
• October 13 – Conrad Richter, fiction writer (died 1968)
• October 14 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961 (died 1969)
• October 20 – Sherman Minton, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1935 to 1941, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1956 (died 1965)
• October 25 – Floyd Bennett, aviator and explorer (died 1928)
• December 21 – Hermann Joseph Muller, geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1946 (died 1967)
• December 25 – Robert Ripley, collector of odd facts (died 1949)
• December 26 – Uncle Charlie Osborne, Appalachian fiddler (died 1992)

• January 2 – George Henry Boker, poet and playwright (born 1823)
• January 28 – Prudence Crandall, educationist (born 1803)
• February 22 – John Jacob Astor III, businessman (born 1822)
• March 2 – James E. English, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1875 to 1876 (born 1812)
• March 19 – John S. Hager, U.S. Senator from California from 1873 to 1875 (born 1818)
• April 1 – David Wilber, politician (born 1820)
• April 19 – James Pollock, politician (born 1810)
• April 30 – Marcus Thrane, author, journalist, and the leader of the first labour movement in Norway (born 1817)
• May 3 – James B. Beck, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1877 to 1890 (born 1822 in Scotland)
• May 15 – Edward Doane, Protestant missionary in Micronesia (born 1820)
• June 11
  • George Edward Brett, publisher (born 1829)
  • Hugh Buchanan, politician from Georgia (born 1823)
• June 30 – Samuel Parkman Tuckerman, composer (born 1819)
• July 9 – Clinton B. Fisk, philanthropist and temperance activist (born 1828)
• July 10 – Thomas C. McCreery, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1868 to 1871 (born 1816)
• July 13 – John C. Frémont, soldier, explorer and U.S. Senator from California from 1850 to 1851 (born 1813)
• August 6 – William Kemmler, murderer, first person executed in the electric chair (born 1860)
• August 10 – John Boyle O'Reilly, poet, novelist, journalist and transportee (born 1844 in Ireland)
• September 8 – Isaac P. Christiancy, Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court and U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1875 to 1879 (born 1812)
• September 30 – Frederick H. Billings, lawyer and financier (born 1823)
• October 7 – John Hill Hewitt, songwriter (born 1801)
• October 8 – James W. Deaderick, Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1876 to 1886 (born 1812)
• October 20 – Alfred B. Mullett, architect (born 1834)
• November 7 – Comanche, horse, survivor of Custer's cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn
• December 15 – Sitting Bull, Native American chief (born c. 1831)
• Ann Leah Underhill, one of the Fox sisters, fraudulent medium (born 1814)

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