1883 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: Chester A. Arthur
• Vice President: vacant
• Chief Justice: Morrison Waite
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: J. Warren Keifer , John G. Carlisle
• Congress: 47th, 48th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January–March

• January 10 - A fire at the Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee kills 73 people.
• January 16 - The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, reforming the United States civil service with the aim to end the spoils system, becomes law.
• January 19 - The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires begins service in Roselle, New Jersey.
• February 23 - Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an antitrust law.
• February 28 - The first vaudeville theater is opened, in Boston, Massachusetts.
• March -
• * Congress authorizes first steel vessels in the United States Navy.
• * Susan Hayhurst becomes first woman to get a pharmacy degree in the United States.

  April–June

• April 13 - Prospector Alferd Packer convicted of manslaughter after being accused of cannibalism.
• April 30 - New York Governor Grover Cleveland signs a bill authorizing protection of land for Niagara Falls State Park, which would eventually lead to the Niagara Reservation being established two years later in 1885.
• May 19 - Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show Debuts In Omaha Nebraska
• May 24 - Brooklyn Bridge is opened to traffic after 13 years of construction.
• May 30 - In New York City, a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge is going to collapse causes a stampede which crushes 12 people.

  July–September

• August - Senator George Vest, along with President Chester A. Arthur, with cabinet members, begin a fishing trip to Yellowstone Park for two weeks, becoming the first sitting president to visit the park, and bringing national attention to Yellowstone.
• August 1 - President Chester A. Arthur Opens the First Southern Exposition In Louisville.
• September 5 – Mary F. Hoyt becomes the first woman appointed to the U.S. federal civil service when she becomes a clerk in the Bank Redemption Agency of the Department of the Treasury.
• September 15 – The University of Texas at Austin opens to students.
• September 29 - A consortium of flour mill operators in Minneapolis, Minnesota, forms the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad as a means to get their product to the Great Lakes ports but avoid the high tariffs of Chicago.

  October–December

• October 15 - The Supreme Court of the United States declares part of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to be unconstitutional, since the Court allows private individuals and corporations to discriminate based on race.
• November 3 -
• * American Old West: Self-described "Black Bart the Po-et" gets away with his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves an incriminating clue that eventually leads to his capture.
• * Race riots in Danville, Virginia kill 4 blacks.
• November 18 - U.S. and Canadian railroads institute 5 standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.
• November 28 - Whitman College is chartered as a 4-year college in Walla Walla, Washington.

  Undated

• The Wolf's Head Society is founded at Yale University.
• Duncan, Arizona is founded.
• A depression starts in Seattle, United States.
• The Capital Area Humane Society of Ohio was founded.

  Ongoing

• Gilded Age
• Depression of 1882–85

  Sport

• September 27 – The Boston Red Stockings clinch their First National League pennant with a 4–1 win over the Cleveland Blues.

  Births

• January 10
• * Francis X. Bushman, screen actor
• * Florence Reed, actress
• January 19 - Waite Phillips, businessman and philanthropist
• January 20 - Enoch L. Johnson, political boss and racketeer
• January 25 - Homer Bone, U.S. Senator from Washington from 1933 to 1944
• March 19 - Joseph Stilwell, general
• April 2 - Pearl Doles Bell, film scenarist, novelist and editor
• April 12 - Imogen Cunningham, photographer
• May 23 - Douglas Fairbanks, swashbuckling silent film actor
• June 7 - Sylvanus Morley, Mayanist
• June 25 - Paul Bartholomew, architect
• June 26 - Mary van Kleeck, labor activist
• July 4 - Rube Goldberg, cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor
• April 3 - Walter Walker, U.S. Senator from Colorado in 1932
• August 18 - Sidney Hatch, athlete
• November 9 - Charles Demuth, painter
• December 13 - Belle da Costa Greene, librarian
• December 19 - Barry Byrne, architect

  Deaths

• January 10 - Samuel Mudd, physician imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
• January 12 - Clark Mills, sculptor
• January 13 - Webster Wagner, inventor, manufacturer and politician
• February 16 - Stephen P. Hempstead, 2nd Governor of Iowa from 1850 to 1854
• March 4 - Alexander H. Stephens, only Vice President of the Confederate States of America
• March 15 - Henry C. Wayne, U.S. Army officer, Confederate brigadier general
• March 26 - Joseph Saberton, U.S. Army private, Union Army
• March 28 - Napoleon Bonaparte Buford, general and railroad executive
• April 4 - Peter Cooper, industrialist, inventor, philanthropist and candidate for President of the U.S.
• April 6 - Benjamin Wright Raymond, politician, twice mayor of Chicago
• April 28 - William M. Browne, politician and newsman, Acting Confederate States Secretary of State in 1862
• May 15 - Josiah Gorgas, Northern-born Confederate general
• June 14
• * Charles Timothy Brooks, poet and translator
• * Eugene Casserly, U.S. Senator from California from 1869 to 1873
• July 15 - General Tom Thumb, dwarf performer
• July 22 - Edward Ord, engineer and U.S. Army officer who saw action in the Seminole War, the Indian Wars and the American Civil War
• July 23 - Ginery Twichell, transportation manager and politician
• July 24 - Thomas Swann, politician and president of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from 1847 to 1853
• July 27 - Montgomery Blair, politician and lawyer
• September 16 - Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., actor and theatre manager
• October 4 - Henry Farnam, surveyor, railroad president and philanthropist
• October 22 - Thomas Mayne Reid, novelist
• November 20 - Augustus C. Dodge, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1848 to 1855
• November 24 - Albert Fitch Bellows, landscape painter
• November 26 - Sojourner Truth, African American abolitionist and women's rights activist
• December 27 - Andrew A. Humphreys, general and civil engineer
• Mary S. B. Shindler, poet