1901 in the United States

Incumbents

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

• President: William McKinley , Theodore Roosevelt
• Vice President:
• * until March 4: vacant
• * March 4–September 14: Theodore Roosevelt
• * starting September 14: vacant
• Chief Justice: Melville Fuller
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: David B. Henderson
• Congress: 56th, 57th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January–March

• January 3 - Census Commissioner predicts a US population of at least 300 million by 2001
• January 5 - Typhoid fever breaks out in a Seattle jail, the first of two typhoid outbreaks in the USA during the year.
• January 10 - In the first great Texas gusher, oil is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas.
• January 28 - Baseball's American League declares itself a Major League.
• February 20 - The Hawaii Territory Legislature convenes for the first time.
• February 25 - U.S. Steel, the first billion-dollar corporation and at some time the world's largest producer of steel, is incorporated by industrialist J. P. Morgan.
• March 2 - The U.S. Congress passes the Platt Amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops.
• March 4 - President William McKinley begins his second term.

  April–June

• April 25 - New York State becomes the first to require automobile license plates.
• May - Monte Ne health resort opens in the Ozarks.
• May 3 - The Great Fire of 1901 in Jacksonville, Florida, begins.
• May 17 - The U.S. stock market crashes for the first time.
• May 27 - The Edison Storage Battery Company is founded in New Jersey.
• May 28 - Cherry v. Des Moines Leader is decided in the Iowa Supreme Court, upholding the right to publish critical reviews.
• June 12 - Cuba becomes a U.S. protectorate.

  July–September

• June 22 to July 31 - The worst heat wave in U.S. history until the 1930s, affecting most areas east of the 100th meridian, is estimated to have killed over 9,500 people.
• July 24 - O. Henry is released from prison in Columbus, Ohio after serving 3 years for embezzlement from the First National Bank in Austin, Texas.
• August 10 - U.S. Steel recognition strike of 1901: Members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers begin a strike against United States Steel Corporation after failing to reach a settlement of their demands, and 14,000 employees walk off of the job.
• September 2 - Vice President Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair.
• September 5 - The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues is formed in Chicago.
• September 6 - American anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies 8 days later.
• September 14 - Vice President Theodore Roosevelt becomes the 26th President of the United States, upon the death of President William McKinley.
• September 26 - The body of President Abraham Lincoln is exhumed and reinterred in concrete several feet thick.

  October–December

• October 4 - The American yacht Columbia defeats the Irish Shamrock in the America's Cup yachting race.
• October 16 - President Theodore Roosevelt invites African American leader Booker T. Washington to the White House. The American South reacts angrily to the visit, and racial violence increases in the region.
• October 23 - Yale University celebrates its bicentennial.
• October 24 - Michigan schoolteacher Annie Taylor goes down Niagara Falls in a barrel and survives.
• October 29 – In Amherst, New Hampshire, nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine.
• October 29 – Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of William McKinley, is executed by electrocution.
• November 1 - Sigma Phi Epsilon is founded in Richmond, Virginia.
• November 15 - The Alpha Sigma Alpha fraternity is founded at Longwood University.
• November 28 - The new state constitution of Alabama requires voters to have passed literacy tests.
• December 3 - President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits."

  Undated

• The Intercollegiate Prohibition Association is established in Chicago.
• Force first produced.

  Ongoing

• Progressive Era
• Lochner era
• Philippine–American War

  Births

• January 2 - Bob Marshall, wilderness activist, founder of The Wilderness Society
• January 4 - Raoul Berger, Ukrainian-born attorney and law professor
• March 24 - Ub Iwerks, American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician
• May 8 - Turkey Stearnes, baseball player
• July 3 - Ruth Crawford Seeger, modernist composer and folk music arranger
• July 22 - Pancho Barnes, pioneer aviator
• July 30 - John A. Carroll, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1957 to 1963
• August 3 - John C. Stennis, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1947 to 1989
• August 4 - Louis Armstrong, jazz trumpeter
• August 8 - Ernest Lawrence, nuclear physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939
• August 23 - John Sherman Cooper, U.S. Senator from Kentucky 1946-1949, 1952-1955 and 1956-1973
• September 28 - Ed Sullivan, entertainment writer and television host
• December 5 - Walt Disney, animator, producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor and business magnate
• December 12 - Fred Barker, criminal member of the Barker-Karpis gang, son of Ma Barker
• December 16 - Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist and author

  Deaths

• January 6 - James W. Bradbury, United States Senator from Maine from 1847 till 1853.
• January 16
• * Murray Hall, born Mary Anderson, bail bondsman and politician
• * Hiram Rhodes Revels, first African American senator
• January 21 - Elisha Gray, inventor and co-founder of Western Electric Manufacturing Company
• January 29 - Alexander H. Jones, Congressional Representative from North Carolina.
• March 13 - Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States from 1889 till 1893 and United States Senator from Indiana from 1881 to 1887.
• April 19 - Alfred Horatio Belo, newswriter and businessman, founder of The Dallas Morning News
• June 2 - James A. Herne, playwright and actor
• July 4 -
• * John Fiske, historian and philosopher
• * Julian Scott, artist and Civil War Medal of Honor recipient
• July 30 - Herbert Baxter Adams, educator and historian
• September 14 - William McKinley, 25th President of the United States from 1897 till 1901.
• October 10 - Lorenzo Snow, 5th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• October 21 - James A. Walker, Confederate general and US Congressman
• October 29 - Leon Czolgosz, Assassin of President William McKinley
• November 8 - Mary Ann Bickerdyke, nurse and hospital administrator for Union soldiers
• November 26 - John Denny, buffalo soldier and Medal of Honor recipient
• November 27 - Clement Studebaker, automobile manufacturer