1852 in the United States

Events from the year 1852 in the United States.

Federal government

 * President: Millard Fillmore (W-New York)
 * Vice President: vacant
 * Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
 * Speaker of the House of Representatives: Linn Boyd (D-Kentucky)
 * Congress: 32nd

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

Governors
• Governor of Alabama: Henry W. Collier (Democratic)

• Governor of Arkansas: John Selden Roane (Democratic) (until November 15), Elias Nelson Conway (Democratic) (starting November 15)

• Governor of California: John McDougall (Democratic) (until January 8), John Bigler (Democratic) (starting January 8)

• Governor of Connecticut: Thomas H. Seymour (Democratic)

• Governor of Delaware: William H. H. Ross (Democratic)

• Governor of Florida: Thomas Brown (Whig)

• Governor of Georgia: Howell Cobb (Democratic)

• Governor of Illinois: Augustus C. French (Democratic)

• Governor of Indiana: Joseph A. Wright (Democratic)

• Governor of Iowa: Stephen P. Hempstead (Democratic)

• Governor of Kentucky: Lazarus W. Powell (Democratic)

• Governor of Louisiana: Joseph Marshall Walker (Democratic)

• Governor of Maine: John Hubbard (Democratic)

• Governor of Maryland: Enoch Louis Lowe (Democratic)

• Governor of Massachusetts: George S. Boutwell (Democratic)

• Governor of Michigan: John S. Barry (Democratic) (until January 1), Robert McClelland (Democratic) (starting January 1)

• Governor of Mississippi: James Whitfield (Democratic) (until January 10), Henry S. Foote (Democratic) (starting January 10)

• Governor of Missouri: Austin Augustus King (Democratic)

• Governor of New Hampshire: Samuel Dinsmoor, Jr. (Democratic) (until June 3), Noah Martin (Democratic) (starting June 3)

• Governor of New Jersey: George F. Fort (Democratic)

• Governor of New York: Washington Hunt (Whig) (until end of December 31)

• Governor of North Carolina: David Settle Reid (Democratic)

• Governor of Ohio: Reuben Wood (Democratic)

• Governor of Pennsylvania: William F. Johnston (Whig) (until January 20), William Bigler (Democratic) (starting January 20)

• Governor of Rhode Island: Philip Allen (Democratic)

• Governor of South Carolina: John Hugh Means (Democratic) (until December 9), John Lawrence Manning (Democratic) (starting December 9)

• Governor of Tennessee: William B. Campbell (Whig)

• Governor of Texas: Peter Hansborough Bell (Democratic)

• Governor of Vermont: Charles K. Williams (Whig) (until October), Erastus Fairbanks (Whig) (starting October)

• Governor of Virginia: John B. Floyd (Democratic) (until January 16), Joseph Johnson (Democratic) (starting January 16)

• Governor of Wisconsin: Nelson Dewey (Democratic) (until January 5), Leonard J. Farwell (Whig) (starting January 5)

Lieutenant governors
• Lieutenant Governor of California: David C. Broderick (Democratic) (until January 8), Samuel Purdy (Democratic) (starting January 8)

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Green Kendrick (Whig) (until month and day unknown), Charles H. Pond (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)

• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: William McMurtry (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: James H. Lane (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: John Burton Thompson (political party unknown)

• Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Jean Baptiste Plauche (Whig)

• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Henry W. Cushman (political party unknown)

• Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: vacant (until month and day unknown), Calvin Britain (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)

• Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Thomas Lawson Price (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of New York: Sanford E. Church (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: William Medill (Democratic) (starting January 12)

• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: William Beach Lawrence (political party unknown) (until month and day unknown), Samuel G. Arnold (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown)

• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Joshua John Ward (Democratic) (until December 9), James Irby (Democratic) (starting December 9)

• Lieutenant Governor of Texas: James Wilson Henderson (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Julius Converse (Whig) (until October), William Kittredge (Whig) (starting October)

• Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Shelton Leake (Democratic) (starting January 16)

• Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Samuel W. Beall (Democratic) (until January 5), Timothy Burns (Democratic) (starting January 5)
 * }

Events

 * January 15 – Nine men representing various Hebrew charitable organizations come together to form what will become the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
 * February 16 – The Studebaker Brothers Wagon Company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established.
 * February 19 – The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity is founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
 * March 2 – The first American experimental steam fire engine is tested.
 * March 4 – The Phi Mu fraternity is established at Wesleyan College.
 * March 20 – Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is first published in book form, in Boston.
 * April 23 – More than 150 Wintu people are killed by a militia under the guidance of Trinity County sheriff William H. Dixon in the Bridge Gulch Massacre.
 * July 1 – American statesman Henry Clay is the first to receive the honor of lying in state in the United States Capitol rotunda.
 * July 5 – Frederick Douglass delivers his famous speech on "The Hypocrisy of American Slavery" in Rochester, New York.
 * August 3 – The first Boat Race between Yale and Harvard, the first American intercollegiate athletic event, is held.
 * September 15 – Loyola College opens its doors to students in the City of Baltimore, Maryland.
 * November 2 – U.S. presidential election, 1852: Democrat Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire defeats Whig Winfield Scott of New Jersey.
 * November 25 – Monticello Convention: 44 people from the northern parts of Oregon Territory meet and draft a petition to establish a separate territorial government north of the Columbia River (which becomes, in the following months, Washington Territory).

Undated

 * In Hawaii sugar planters bring over the first Chinese laborers on 3 or 5 year contracts, giving them 3 dollars per month plus room and board for working a 12-hour day, 6 days a week.
 * Loyola College in Maryland is chartered in Baltimore.
 * Tufts University is founded in Medford, Massachusetts.
 * Mills College is founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in Benicia, California.
 * Justin Perkins, an American Presbyterian missionary, produces the first translation of the Bible in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, which is published with the parallel text of the Syriac Peshitta by the American Bible Society.
 * Lowell, Indiana is incorporated
 * Westminster College, a Presbyterian Liberal Arts School, is founded New Wilmington, PA.

Ongoing

 * California Gold Rush (1848–1855)

Births

 * January 8 – James Milton Carroll, Baptist pastor, leader, historian and author (died 1931)
 * January 11 – Elnora Monroe Babcock, suffragist (died 1934)
 * January 14 – Cornelia Cole Fairbanks, wife of Charles W. Fairbanks, Second Lady of the United States (died 1913)
 * February 16 – Charles Taze Russell, Christian restorationist minister (died 1916)
 * February 18 – Ferdinand Lee Barnett, African American journalist, lawyer and civil rights activist (died 1936)
 * February 26 – John Harvey Kellogg, Adventist doctor and health reformer (died 1943)
 * March 12 – Mary Catherine Judd, educator, children's author, peace activist (died 1930s)
 * March 25 – Charles Loomis Dana, neurologist (died 1935)
 * April 1 – Edwin Austin Abbey, painter and illustrator (died 1911)
 * April 13 – F. W. Woolworth, merchant and businessman (died 1919)
 * April 23 – Edwin Markham, poet (died 1940)
 * May 1 – Calamity Jane, frontierswoman (died 1903)
 * May 11 – Charles W. Fairbanks, 26th vice president of the United States from 1905 till 1909 and United States Senator from Indiana from 1897 to 1905 (died 1918)
 * May 14 – Alton B. Parker, judge and Democratic political candidate (died 1926)
 * May 18 – Gertrude Käsebier, née Stanton, one of the most influential American portrait photographers of the early 20th century (died 1934)
 * May 23 – Weldon B. Heyburn, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1903 to 1912 (died 1912)
 * June 22 – Mary Canfield Ballard, poet and hymnwriter (died 1927)
 * July 4
 * John H. Hill, African American lawyer and educator (died 1936)
 * Loretta C. Van Hook, Presbyterian missionary and educator (died 1935)
 * August 16 – Charles Sanger Mellen, railroad manager (died 1927)
 * September 15 – Edward Bouchet, African American physicist (died 1918)
 * October 25 – Byron Andrews, journalist, statesman, author and businessman (died 1910)
 * October 30 – Jane Kelley Adams, educator (died 1924)
 * October 31 – Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, short-story and children's fiction writer and poet (died 1930)
 * November 1 – Eugene W. Chafin, politician (died 1920)
 * November 10 – Henry van Dyke, author, poet, educator and clergyman (died 1933)
 * November 15 – Ella Maria Ballou, writer (d. 1937)
 * November 16 – Joseph R. Burton, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1901 to 1906 (died 1923)

Deaths

 * February 14 – Thomas Carlin, 7th Governor of Illinois from 1838 to 1842 (born 1789)
 * February 24 – John Frazee, first American-born sculptor to execute a bust in marble (born 1790)
 * March 9 – Anson Dickinson, painter of miniature portraits (born 1779)
 * April 10 – John Howard Payne, actor, playwright, author and consul in Tunis from 1842, lyricist for "Home! Sweet Home!" (born 1791)
 * May 6 – William Bellinger Bulloch, U.S. Senator from Georgia in 1813 (born 1777)
 * May 15 – Louisa Adams, First Lady of the United States as wife of John Quincy Adams from 1825 to 1829 (born 1775)
 * May 18 – Briscoe Baldwin, planter and Virginia politician (born 1789)
 * June 8 – Perry Smith, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1837 to 1843 (born 1783)
 * June 17 – William King, merchant, shipbuilder, army officer and statesman (born 1768)
 * June 29 – Henry Clay, U.S. Senator from Kentucky 1806–1807, 1810–1811, 1831–1842 and 1849–1852 (born 1777)
 * July 19 – John McKinley, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1826 to 1831 and in 1837, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1837 to 1852 (born 1780)
 * August 14 – Margaret Taylor, First Lady of the United States as wife of Zachary Taylor (born 1788)
 * September 20 – Philander Chase, Episcopal Church bishop, educator, pioneer of the western frontier and founder of Kenyon College (born 1775)
 * September 23 – John Vanderlyn, neoclassical painter (born 1775)
 * October 4 – James Whitcomb, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1849 to 1852 (born 1795)
 * October 13 – John Lloyd Stephens, traveler, diplomat and Mayanist archaeologist (born 1805)
 * October 24 – Daniel Webster, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts (born 1782)
 * October 25 – John C. Clark, politician (born 1793)
 * November 18 – John Andrew Shulze, politician (born 1775)
 * November 24 – Walter Forward, lawyer and politician, 15th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1841 to 1843 (born 1786)
 * November 30 – Junius Brutus Booth, actor, father of John Wilkes Booth and Edwin Booth (born 1796 in England)
 * December 13 – Frances Wright, freethinker (born 1795 in Scotland)
 * December 18 – Horatio Greenough, sculptor (born 1805)