1848 in the United States

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 1848
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Decades:
  • 1820s
  • 1830s
  • 1840s
  • 1850s
  • 1860s
See also:

Events from the year 1848 in the United States.

Incumbents[]

Federal Government[]

  • President: James K. Polk (D-Tennessee)
  • Vice President: George M. Dallas (D-Pennsylvania)
  • Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
  • Speaker of the House of Representatives: Robert Charles Winthrop (W-Massachusetts)
  • Congress: 30th

Events[]

February 2: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the Mexican–American War and ceding all the Republic of Texas's territorial claims to the United States for $15m.

January–March[]

  • January 24 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California.
  • January 31 – The Washington Monument is established.
  • February 2 – Mexican–American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the war and ceding to the US virtually all of what becomes the southwestern United States.
  • March 18 – The Boston Public Library is founded by an act of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts.
May 29: Wisconsin admitted as the 30th U.S. state.

April–June[]

  • April 3 – The Chicago Board of Trade is founded by 82 Chicago merchants and business leaders.
  • April 23 – The Illinois and Michigan Canal is completed.
  • May 19 – The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2), ending the Mexican–American War, is ratified by the Mexican government.
  • May 29 – Wisconsin is admitted as the 30th U.S. state (see History of Wisconsin).
  • June 14–15 – The Liberty Party National Convention is held in Buffalo, New York. Presidential candidate Gerrit Smith establishes woman suffrage as a party plank.[1][2]

July–September[]

  • July 19 – Seneca Falls Convention: The first women's rights convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York.
  • July 26 – The University of Wisconsin–Madison is founded.
  • August 14 – Oregon Territory is established.
  • August 19 – California Gold Rush: The New York Herald breaks the news to the East Coast of the United States that there is a gold rush in California (although the rush started in January).
  • September 12 – One of the successes of the Revolutions of 1848, the Swiss Federal Constitution, patterned on the US Constitution, enters into force, creating a federal republic and one of the first modern democratic states in Europe.
  • September 13 – Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage incredibly survives a 3-foot-plus iron rod being driven through his head.
November 7: The first US presidential election held in every state on the same day sees Whig Zachary Taylor of Virginia defeat Democrat Lewis Cass of Michigan.

October–December[]

  • November 1 – The first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which later merges with Boston University School of Medicine), opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
  • November 7 – U.S. presidential election, 1848: Whig Zachary Taylor of Louisiana defeats Democrat Lewis Cass of Michigan in the first US presidential election to be held in every state on the same day.

No fixed date[]

  • A cholera epidemic in New York kills 5,000.
  • The University of Mississippi admits its first students.
  • Geneva College (Pennsylvania) is founded as Geneva Hall in Northwood, Logan County, Ohio.
  • Rhodes College is founded in Clarksville, Tennessee as the Masonic University of Tennessee.
  • The Shaker song "Simple Gifts" is written by Joseph Brackett in Alfred, Maine.

Ongoing[]

Births[]

  • January 13 – Lilla Cabot Perry, painter (died 1933)
  • February 20 – E. H. Harriman, railroad executive (died 1909)
  • February 22 – Emily McGary Selinger, painter, author and educator (died 1927)
  • March 8 – LaMarcus Adna Thompson, inventor (died 1919)
  • March 19 – Wyatt Earp, lawman and gunfighter (died 1929)
  • March 26 – Edward O. Wolcott, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1889 to 1901 (died 1905)
  • May 10 – Lafayette Young, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1910 to 1911 (died 1926)
  • June 15 – Sol Smith Russell, comedian (died 1902)
  • July 22 – Winfield Scott Stratton, miner (died 1902)
  • August 24 – Kate Claxton, actress (died 1924)
  • September 4 – Lewis Howard Latimer, African American inventor (died 1928)
  • September 29 – Caroline Yale, educator (died 1933)
  • October 6 – Webb C. Ball, jeweler and watchmaker from Fredericktown, Ohio (died 1922)
  • October 15 – Harmon Northrop Morse, chemist (died 1920)
  • November 1 – Caroline Still Anderson, African American physician, educator and activist (died 1919)
  • November 2 – Stephen Mallory II, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1897 to 1907 (died 1907)
  • November 7 – B. B. Comer, 33rd Governor of Alabama, U.S. Senator from Alabama in 1920 (died 1927)
  • November 20 – James M. Spangler, inventor (died 1915)
  • November 27 – Henry A. Rowland, physicist (died 1901)

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Deaths[]

  • February 11 – Thomas Cole, landscape painter (born 1801 in the United Kingdom)
  • February 23 – John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829 (born 1767)
  • March 29 – John Jacob Astor, businessman (born 1763)
  • April 29 – Chester Ashley, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1844 to 1848 (born 1790)
  • May 18 – William Leidesdorff, businessman (born 1810)
  • June 26 – Stevenson Archer, U.S. Congressman from Maryland from 1819 to 1821 (born 1786)
  • July 20 – Francis R. Shunk, politician (born 1788)
  • August 15 – Timothy Olmstead, composer, fifer in the American Revolutionary War (born 1759)
  • August 30 – Simon Willard, horologist (born 1753)
  • October 25 – Dixon Hall Lewis, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1844 to 1848 (born 1802)
  • December 31 – Ambrose Hundley Sevier, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1836 to 1848 (born 1801)

See also[]

Further reading[]

  • The Emigrant's Hand-book, or, A directory and guide for persons emigrating to the United States of America; also, a concise description of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri and Iowa, and the western territories, and including a statement of the modes and expenses of travelling from New York to the interior, New York: J.H. Colton, 1848, OCLC 2604051, OL 7235459M

References[]

  1. ^ Claflin, Alta Blanche (1915). Political parties in the United States 1800–1914. New York Public Library. p. 50.
  2. ^ Wellman, Judith (2000). The Road to Seneca Falls. University of Illinois Press. p. 176. ISBN 0-252-02904-6.

External links[]

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