1848 in the United States

Events from the year 1848 in the United States.

Federal government

 * President: James K. Polk (D-Tennessee)
 * Vice President: George M. Dallas (D-Pennsylvania)
 * Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
 * Speaker of the House of Representatives: Robert Charles Winthrop (W-Massachusetts)
 * Congress: 30th

{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" ! Governors and lieutenant governors

Governors

 * Governor of Alabama: Reuben Chapman (Democratic)
 * Governor of Arkansas: Thomas Stevenson Drew (Democratic)
 * Governor of Connecticut: Clark Bissell (Whig)
 * Governor of Delaware: William Tharp (Democratic)
 * Governor of Florida: William Dunn Moseley (Democratic)
 * Governor of Georgia: George W. Towns (Democratic)
 * Governor of Illinois: Augustus C. French (Democratic)
 * Governor of Indiana: James Whitcomb (Democratic) (until December 26), Paris C. Dunning (Democratic) (starting December 26)
 * Governor of Iowa: Ansel Briggs (Democratic)
 * Governor of Kentucky: William Owsley (Whig) (until September 6), John J. Crittenden (Whig) (starting September 6)
 * Governor of Louisiana: Isaac Johnson (Democratic)
 * Governor of Maine: John W. Dana (Democratic)
 * Governor of Maryland: Thomas Pratt (Democratic) (until January 3), Philip F. Thomas (Democratic) (starting January 3)
 * Governor of Massachusetts: George N. Briggs (Democratic)
 * Governor of Michigan: William L. Greenly (Democratic) (until January 3), Epaphroditus Ransom (Democratic) (starting January 3)
 * Governor of Mississippi: Albert G. Brown (Democratic) (until January 10), Joseph W. Matthews (Democratic) (starting January 10)
 * Governor of Missouri: John C. Edwards (Democratic) (until November 20), Austin Augustus King (Democratic) (starting November 20)
 * Governor of New Hampshire: Jared W. Williams (Democratic)
 * Governor of New Jersey: Charles C. Stratton (Whig) (until January 18), Daniel Haines (Democratic) (starting January 18)
 * Governor of New York: John Young (Whig) (until end of December 31)
 * Governor of North Carolina: William Alexander Graham (Whig)
 * Governor of Ohio: William Bebb (Whig)
 * Governor of Pennsylvania:
 * until July 9: Francis R. Shunk (Democratic)
 * July 9-July 26: vacant
 * starting July 26: William F. Johnston (Whig)
 * Governor of Rhode Island: Elisha Harris (Law and Order)
 * Governor of South Carolina: David Johnson (Democratic) (until December 12), Whitemarsh B. Seabrook (Democratic) (starting December 12)
 * Governor of Tennessee: Neill S. Brown (Whig)
 * Governor of Texas: George T. Wood (Democratic)
 * Governor of Vermont: Horace Eaton (Whig) (until October), Carlos Coolidge (Whig) (starting October)
 * Governor of Virginia: William Smith (Democratic)
 * Governor of Wisconsin: vacant (until June 7), Nelson Dewey (Democratic) (starting June 7)

Lieutenant governors

 * Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Charles J. McCurdy (Whig)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Joseph Wells (Democratic)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Paris C. Dunning (Democratic) (until December 26), vacant (starting December 26)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Archibald Dixon (Whig) (until September 6), John LaRue Helm (Whig) (starting September 6)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Trasimond Landry (Whig)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: John Reed, Jr. (political party unknown)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: vacant (until month and day unknown), William M. Fenton (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: James Young (Democratic) (until November 20), Thomas Lawson Price (Democratic) (starting November 20)
 * Lieutenant Governor of New York: Hamilton Fish (Democratic) (until end of December 31)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Edward W. Lawton (political party unknown)
 * Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: William Cain (Democratic) (until December 12), William Henry Gist (Democratic Party) (starting December 12)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Texas: John Alexander Greer (Democratic)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Leonard Sargeant (Whig) (until October), Robert Pierpoint (Whig) (starting October)
 * Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: John E. Holmes (Democratic) (starting June 7)
 * }

January–March

 * January 24 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California.
 * January 31 – The Washington Monument is established.
 * February 2 – Mexican–American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the war and ceding to the U.S. virtually all of what becomes the southwestern United States.
 * March 18 – The Boston Public Library is founded by an act of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts.



April–June

 * April 3 – The Chicago Board of Trade is founded by 82 Chicago merchants and business leaders.
 * April 23 – The Illinois and Michigan Canal is completed.
 * May 19 – The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2), ending the Mexican–American War, is ratified by the Mexican government.
 * May 29 – Wisconsin is admitted as the 30th U.S. state (see History of Wisconsin).
 * June 14–15 – The Liberty Party National Convention is held in Buffalo, New York. Presidential candidate Gerrit Smith establishes woman suffrage as a party plank.

July–September

 * July 19 – Seneca Falls Convention: The first women's rights convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York.
 * July 26 – The University of Wisconsin–Madison is founded.
 * August 14 – Oregon Territory is established.
 * August 19 – California Gold Rush: The New York Herald breaks the news to the East Coast of the United States that there is a gold rush in California (although the rush started in January).
 * September 12 – One of the successes of the Revolutions of 1848, the Swiss Federal Constitution, patterned on the U.S. Constitution, enters into force, creating a federal republic and one of the first modern democratic states in Europe.
 * September 13 – Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage incredibly survives a 3-foot-plus iron rod being driven through his head.



October–December

 * November 1 – The first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which later merges with Boston University School of Medicine), opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
 * November 7 – U.S. presidential election, 1848: Whig Zachary Taylor of Louisiana defeats Democrat Lewis Cass of Michigan in the first U.S. presidential election to be held in every state on the same day.
 * December 26 – The Phi Delta Theta fraternity is founded at Miami University.

No fixed date

 * A cholera epidemic in New York kills 5,000.
 * The University of Mississippi admits its first students.
 * Geneva College (Pennsylvania) is founded as Geneva Hall in Northwood, Logan County, Ohio.
 * Rhodes College is founded in Clarksville, Tennessee as the Masonic University of Tennessee.
 * The Shaker song "Simple Gifts" is written by Joseph Brackett in Alfred, Maine.

Ongoing

 * Mexican–American War (1846–1848)
 * California Gold Rush (1848–1855)

Births

 * January 13 – Lilla Cabot Perry, painter (died 1933)
 * February 20 – E. H. Harriman, railroad executive (died 1909)
 * February 22 – Emily McGary Selinger, painter, author and educator (died 1927)
 * March 8 – LaMarcus Adna Thompson, inventor (died 1919)
 * March 19 – Wyatt Earp, lawman and gunfighter (died 1929)
 * March 26 – Edward O. Wolcott, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1889 to 1901 (died 1905)
 * May 10 – Lafayette Young, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1910 to 1911 (died 1926)
 * June 15 – Sol Smith Russell, comedian (died 1902)
 * July 22 – Winfield Scott Stratton, miner (died 1902)
 * August 24 – Kate Claxton, actress (died 1924)
 * September 4 – Lewis Howard Latimer, African American inventor (died 1928)
 * September 29 – Caroline Yale, educator (died 1933)
 * October 6 – Webb C. Ball, jeweler and watchmaker from Fredericktown, Ohio (died 1922)
 * October 15 – Harmon Northrop Morse, chemist (died 1920)
 * November 1 – Caroline Still Anderson, African American physician, educator and activist (died 1919)
 * November 2 – Stephen Mallory II, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1897 to 1907 (died 1907)
 * November 7 – B. B. Comer, 33rd Governor of Alabama, U.S. Senator from Alabama in 1920 (died 1927)
 * November 20 – James M. Spangler, inventor (died 1915)
 * November 27 – Henry A. Rowland, physicist (died 1901)

Deaths

 * February 11 – Thomas Cole, landscape painter (born 1801 in the United Kingdom)
 * February 23 – John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States from 1825 to 1829 (born 1767)
 * March 29 – John Jacob Astor, businessman (born 1763)
 * April 29 – Chester Ashley, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1844 to 1848 (born 1790)
 * May 18 – William Leidesdorff, businessman (born 1810)
 * June 26 – Stevenson Archer, U.S. Congressman from Maryland from 1819 to 1821 (born 1786)
 * July 20 – Francis R. Shunk, politician (born 1788)
 * August 15 – Timothy Olmstead, composer, fifer in the American Revolutionary War (born 1759)
 * August 30 – Simon Willard, horologist (born 1753)
 * October 25 – Dixon Hall Lewis, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1844 to 1848 (born 1802)
 * December 31 – Ambrose Hundley Sevier, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1836 to 1848 (born 1801)