1902 in the United States

Events from the year 1902 in the United States.

• 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

• 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.^[1] 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.^[2]
• March 22 – International Harvester formed by merger of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, Deering Harvester Company and other companies.^[3]

• 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.^[4]
• April 14 – The first J. C. Penney department store opens in Kemmerer, Wyoming.^[5]
• 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.^[6]
• 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.^[7]
• June 24 – Target Corporation, the department store chain, is founded.

• 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.
• July 22 – Felix Pedro discovers gold in modern-day Fairbanks, Alaska.
• 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 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 2 – William D. Jelks is elected the 32nd governor of Alabama defeating John A. W. Smith.
• 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.

• The Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend, Indiana, begins as a duck pond.^[8]
• The First Goodwill Industries Store is opened in Boston, Massachusetts by Rev. Edgar J. Helms of Morgan Methodist Chapel.

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

• January 4 – John A. McCone, CIA Director from 1961 to 1965 (died 1991)
• January 9 – Ann Nixon Cooper, African-American civil rights activist (died 2009)
• January 19 – Marjorie Daw, actress (died 1979)
• 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)^[9]
  • John Steinbeck, novelist (died 1968)
• March 4 – Russell Reeder, soldier and author (d. 1998)^[10]
• March 16 – Leon Roppolo, jazz clarinetist (died 1943)
• March 17 – Bobby Jones, amateur golfer (died 1971)
• March 21 – Al Smith, cartoonist (died 1986)^[11]
• March 23 – Philip Ober, actor (died 1982)
• March 24 – Thomas E. Dewey, 47th Governor of New York, 1948 Republican presidential nominee (died 1971)^[12]
• 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 24 – Wilbur Hatch, composer (died 1969)
• May 27 – Gladys Pearl Baker, née Monroe, film editor and mother of actress Marilyn Monroe (died 1984)
• June 2
  • James T. Berryman, political cartoonist (died 1971)
  • Rosa Rio, organist and composer (died 2010)^[13]
• June 7 – Hope Summers, screen character actress (died 1979)
• June 25 – Ralph Erickson, baseball pitcher (died 2002)
• July 4
  • Vince Barnett, actor (died 1977)
  • George Murphy, U.S. Senator from California from 1965 to 1971 (died 1992)
• July 7
  • Richard Barrett Lowe, governor of Guam and American Samoa (died 1972)
  • Ted Radcliffe, baseball player (died 2005)
• July 16 – Andrew L. Stone, screenwriter, director and producer (died 1999)
• July 21 – Joseph Kesselring, playwright (died 1967)
• July 31 – Randolph Edgar Haugan, author, editor and publisher (died 1985)
• August 1 – Harold D. Schuster, film director (died 1986)
• August 4 – Clara Peller, actress (died 1987)
• August 18 – Margaret Murie, environmentalist and author ^[14]
• August 22 – Omer Poos, United States district judge from 1958 to 1976 (died 1976)
• 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)^[15]
• October 21 – Eddy Hamel, soccer player (d. 1943 in Auschwitz)^[16]
• 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)^[17]
• December 14 – Frances Bavier, stage and television actress (died 1989)^[18]
• 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)

• 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)^[19]
• 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)^[20]

• List of American films of 1902
• Timeline of United States history (1900–1929)

• American Annual Cyclopaedia ... 1902, NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1875, pp. 28 v – via HathiTrust
• "Domestic Chronology", Statistician and Economist, San Francisco: Louis P. McCarty, 1905, pp. 227–347, hdl:2027/uc1.b3142275 – via HathiTrust. (Covers events May 1898-June 1905)

• Media related to 1902 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons