1902 in the United States

Events from the year 1902 in the United States.

Federal government

 * President: Theodore Roosevelt (R-New York)
 * Vice President: vacant
 * Chief Justice: Melville Fuller (Illinois)
 * Speaker of the House of Representatives: David B. Henderson (R-Iowa)
 * Congress: 57th

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

Governors
• Governor of Alabama: William D. Jelks (Democratic)

• Governor of Arkansas: Jeff Davis (Democratic)

• Governor of California: Henry Gage (Republican)

• Governor of Colorado: James Bradley Orman (Democratic)

• Governor of Connecticut: George P. McLean (Republican)

• Governor of Delaware: John Hunn (Republican)

• Governor of Florida: William Sherman Jennings (Democratic)

• Governor of Georgia: Allen D. Candler (Democratic) (until October 25), Joseph M. Terrell (Democratic) (starting October 25)

• Governor of Idaho: Frank W. Hunt (Democratic)

• Governor of Illinois: Richard Yates, Jr. (Republican)

• Governor of Indiana: Winfield T. Durbin (Republican)

• Governor of Iowa: Leslie M. Shaw (Republican) (until January 16), Albert B. Cummins (Republican) (starting January 16)

• Governor of Kansas: William E. Stanley (Republican)

• Governor of Kentucky: J. C. W. Beckham (Democratic)

• Governor of Louisiana: William Wright Heard (Democratic)

• Governor of Maine: John Fremont Hill (Republican)

• Governor of Maryland: John Walter Smith (Democratic)

• Governor of Massachusetts: Winthrop Murray Crane (Republican)

• Governor of Michigan: Aaron T. Bliss (Republican)

• Governor of Minnesota: Samuel Rinnah Van Sant (Republican)

• Governor of Mississippi: Andrew H. Longino (Democratic)

• Governor of Missouri: Alexander Monroe Dockery (Democratic)

• Governor of Montana: Joseph Toole (Democratic)

• Governor of Nebraska: Ezra P. Savage (Republican)

• Governor of Nevada: Reinhold Sadler (Silver)

• Governor of New Hampshire: Chester B. Jordan (Republican)

• Governor of New Jersey: Foster MacGowan Voorhees (Republican) (until January 21), Franklin Murphy (Republican) (starting January 21)

• Governor of New York: Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr. (Republican)

• Governor of North Carolina: Charles Brantley Aycock (Democratic)

• Governor of North Dakota: Frank White (Republican)

• Governor of Ohio: George K. Nash (Republican)

• Governor of Oregon: T. T. Geer (Republican)

• Governor of Pennsylvania: William A. Stone (Republican)

• Governor of Rhode Island: Charles D. Kimball (Republican)

• Governor of South Carolina: Miles Benjamin McSweeney (Democratic)

• Governor of South Dakota: Charles N. Herreid (Republican)

• Governor of Tennessee: Benton McMillin (Democratic)

• Governor of Texas: Joseph D. Sayers (Democratic)

• Governor of Utah: Heber Manning Wells (Republican)

• Governor of Vermont: William W. Stickney (Republican) (until October 3), John G. McCullough (Republican) (starting October 3)

• Governor of Virginia: James Hoge Tyler (Democratic) (until January 1), Andrew Jackson Montague (Democratic) (starting January 1)

• Governor of Washington: Henry McBride (Republican)

• Governor of West Virginia: Albert B. White (Republican)

• Governor of Wisconsin: Robert M. La Follette, Sr. (Republican)

• Governor of Wyoming: DeForest Richards (Republican)

Lieutenant governors
• Lieutenant Governor of California: Jacob H. Neff (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Colorado: David Courtney Coates (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Edwin O. Keeler (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Delaware: Philip L. Cannon (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Idaho: Thomas F. Terrell (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: William Northcott (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Newton W. Gilbert (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: James C. Milliman (Republican) (until January 16), John Herriott (Republican) (starting January 16)

• Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Harry E. Richter (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant

• Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Albert Estopinal (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: John L. Bates (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Orrin W. Robinson (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: Lyndon A. Smith (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: James T. Harrison (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: John Adams Lee (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Montana: Frank G. Higgins (political party unknown)

• Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska: vacant

• Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: James R. Judge (political party unknown)

• Lieutenant Governor of New York: Timothy L. Woodruff (Republican) (until end of December 31)

• Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Wilfred D. Turner (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota: David Bartlett (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Ohio:

• * until January 13: John A. Caldwell (Republican)

• * January 13-May 1: Carl L. Nippert (Republican)

• * May 1-June 26: vacant

• * starting June 26: Harry L. Gordon (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania: John P. S. Gobin (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: vacant (until February 18), George L. Shepley (Republican) (starting February 18)

• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: James H. Tillman (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota: George W. Snow (Republican)

• Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: Newton H. White (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Texas: James Browning (Democratic)

• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Martin F. Allen (Republican) (until October 3), Zed S. Stanton (Republican) (starting October 3)

• Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Edward Echols (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Joseph Edward Willard (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)

• Lieutenant Governor of Washington: vacant

• Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Jesse Stone (Republican) (until May 11), vacant (starting May 11)
 * }

January–March

 * 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.

April–June

 * 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.

July–September

 * July 1 – The Philippine Organic Act becomes law, providing that the lower house of the Philippine legislature will be elected after the insurrection ends.
 * July 2 – The Philippine–American War ends.
 * July 8 – The United States Bureau of Reclamation is established within the U.S. Geological Survey.
 * July 10 – The Rolling Mill Mine disaster in Johnstown, Pennsylvania kills 112 miners.
 * July 17 – Willis Carrier devises air conditioning in New York City.
 * August 22 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first American president to ride in an automobile, a Columbia Electric Victoria through Hartford, Connecticut.
 * September 19 – Shiloh Baptist Church stampede: 115 people are killed in a crush at a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, following a mistaken alarm of fire after an address by Booker T. Washington.

October–December

 * October 21 – A 5-month strike by the United Mine Workers ends.
 * October 24 – Delta Zeta Sorority is founded at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
 * November 16 – A newspaper cartoon depicting President "Teddy" Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear cub inspires creation of the first teddy bear by Morris Michtom in New York City.
 * November 30 – On the American frontier, the second-in-command of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, Harvey Logan ("Kid Curry"), is captured after a shootout with lawmen in Knoxville, Tennessee. He is sentenced to a $5,000 fine and 20 years hard labor for robbery but escapes custody in 1903.
 * December – The Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903 occurs (until February 1903), in which Britain, Germany and Italy sustain a naval blockade on Venezuela in order to enforce collection of outstanding financial claims. This prompts the development of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.

Undated

 * The Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend, Indiana, begins as a duck pond.
 * The First Goodwill Industries Store is opened in Boston, Massachusetts by Rev. Edgar J. Helms of Morgan Methodist Chapel.

Ongoing

 * Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)
 * Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937)
 * Philippine–American War (1899–1902)

Births

 * January 4 – John A. McCone, CIA Director from 1961 to 1965 (died 1991)
 * 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 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 27 – Gladys Pearl Baker, née Monroe, film editor and mother of actress Marilyn Monroe (died 1984)
 * June 2
 * James T. Berryman, political cartoonist, recipient of the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning (died 1971)
 * Rosa Rio, organist and composer (died 2010)
 * June 7 – Hope Summers, screen character actress (died 1979)
 * July 4 – George Murphy, U.S. Senator from California from 1965 to 1971 (died 1992)
 * August 1 – Harold D. Schuster, film director (died 1986)
 * August 4 – Clara Peller, actress (died 1987)
 * August 18 – Margaret Murie, environmentalist and author (died 2003)
 * 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 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)