# 1906 in the United States

Events from the year 1906 in the United States.

## Incumbents
### Federal government

* President: Theodore Roosevelt (R-New York)
* Vice President: Charles W. Fairbanks (R-Indiana)
* Chief Justice: Melville Fuller (Illinois)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Joseph Gurney Cannon (R-Illinois)
* Congress: 59th
* Governors and lieutenant governors
* Governors
* Governor of Alabama: William D. Jelks (Democratic)
* Governor of Arkansas: Jeff Davis (Democratic)
* Governor of California: George Pardee (Republican)
* Governor of Colorado: Jesse Fuller McDonald (Republican)
* Governor of Connecticut: Henry Roberts (Republican)
* Governor of Delaware: Preston Lea (Republican)
* Governor of Florida: Napoleon B. Broward (Democratic)
* Governor of Georgia: Joseph M. Terrell (Democratic)
* Governor of Idaho: Frank R. Gooding (Republican)
* Governor of Illinois: Charles S. Deneen (Republican)
* Governor of Indiana: J. Frank Hanly (Republican)
* Governor of Iowa: Albert B. Cummins (Republican)
* Governor of Kansas: Edward W. Hoch (Republican)
* Governor of Kentucky: J. C. W. Beckham (Democratic)
* Governor of Louisiana: Newton Crain Blanchard (Democratic)
* Governor of Maine: William T. Cobb (Republican)
* Governor of Maryland: Edwin Warfield (Democratic)
* Governor of Massachusetts: William L. Douglas (Democratic) (until January 4), Curtis Guild, Jr. (Republican) (starting January 4)
* Governor of Michigan: Fred M. Warner (Republican)
* Governor of Minnesota: John A. Johnson (Democratic)
* Governor of Mississippi: James K. Vardaman (Democratic)
* Governor of Missouri: Joseph W. Folk (Democratic)
* Governor of Montana: Joseph Toole (Democratic)
* Governor of Nebraska: John H. Mickey (Republican)
* Governor of Nevada: John Sparks (Silver)
* Governor of New Hampshire: John McLane (Republican)
* Governor of New Jersey: Edward C. Stokes (Republican)
* Governor of New York: Frank W. Higgins (Republican) (until end of December 31)
* Governor of North Carolina: Robert Broadnax Glenn (Democratic)
* Governor of North Dakota: Elmore Y. Sarles (Republican)
* Governor of Ohio:
* until January 8: Myron T. Herrick (Republican)
* January 8-June 18: John M. Pattison (Democratic)
* starting June 18: Andrew L. Harris (Republican)
* Governor of Oregon: George Chamberlain (Democratic)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: Samuel W. Pennypacker (Republican)
* Governor of Rhode Island: George H. Utter (Republican)
* Governor of South Carolina: Duncan Clinch Heyward (Democratic)
* Governor of South Dakota: Samuel H. Elrod (Republican)
* Governor of Tennessee: John I. Cox (Democratic)
* Governor of Texas: S. W. T. Lanham (Democratic)
* Governor of Utah: John Christopher Cutler (Republican)
* Governor of Vermont: Charles J. Bell (Republican) (until October 3), Fletcher D. Proctor (Republican) (starting October 3)
* Governor of Virginia: Andrew Jackson Montague (Democratic) (until February 1), Claude A. Swanson (Democratic) (starting February 10)
* Governor of Washington: Albert E. Mead (Republican)
* Governor of West Virginia: William M. O. Dawson (Republican)
* Governor of Wisconsin: Robert M. La Follette, Sr. (Republican) (until January 1), James O. Davidson (Republican) (starting January 1)
* Governor of Wyoming: Bryant B. Brooks (Republican)
* Lieutenant governors
* Lieutenant Governor of Alabama: Russell M. Cunningham (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of California: Alden Anderson (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Colorado: Fred W. Parks (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Rollin S. Woodruff (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Delaware: Isaac T. Parker (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Idaho: Burpee L. Steeves (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Lawrence Sherman (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Hugh T. Miller (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: John Herriott (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: David J. Hanna (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: William P. Thorne (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Jared Y. Sanders, Sr. (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Curtis Guild, Jr. (Republican) (until January 4), Eben Sumner Draper (Republican) (starting January 4)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Alexander Maitland (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: Ray W. Jones (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: John Prentiss Carter (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: John C. McKinley (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Montana: Edwin L. Norris (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska: Edmund G. McGilton (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: Lemuel Allen (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York:
* until December 5: Matthew Linn Bruce (Republican)
* December 5 to end of December 31: John Raines (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Francis D. Winston (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota: David Bartlett (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Ohio:
* until January 8: Warren G. Harding (Republican)
* January 8-June 18: Andrew L. Harris (Republican)
* starting June 18: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania: William M. Brown (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Frederick Jackson (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: John Sloan (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota: John E. McDougall (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: Ernest Rice (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: George D. Neal (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Charles H. Stearns (Republican) (until October 4), George H. Prouty (Republican) (starting October 4)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Joseph Edward Willard (Democratic) (until February 1), James Taylor Ellyson (Democratic) (starting February 1)
* Lieutenant Governor of Washington: Charles E. Coon (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: James O. Davidson (Republican)

## Events
### January–March

* January 8 – A landslide in Haverstraw, New York kills 21 people.
* February 26 – Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle, a novel depicting the life of a contemporary immigrant family in Chicago working in the meat packing industry.
* March 4 – Native American tribal governments are terminated in Indian Territory, a prerequisite for creating the U.S. state of Oklahoma in 1907.

### April–June

* April 5 – The Maryland General Assembly authorises the erection of the Union Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Baltimore.
* April 14 – The first service is held at African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles by W. J. Seymour, in a series later known as the Azusa Street Revival, an event which launches the Pentecostal movement in Christianity.
* April 18 – The 1906 San Francisco earthquake (estimated magnitude 7.8) on the San Andreas Fault destroys much of San Francisco, California, killing at least 3,000 people, with 225,000–300,000 left homeless, and $350,000,000 in damages.
* May 27 – The first inmates are moved to the Culion leper colony by the American Insular Government of the Philippine Islands.
* June – Josephine Terranova is acquitted by a New York City jury of the murder of abusive relatives.
* June 6 – Durham and Southern Railway operates its first revenue train, Bonsal to Durham, North Carolina.
* June 8 – Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the president to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.
* June 18 – The Lake County Times (later The Times of Northwest Indiana) begins publication.
* June 25 – Harry K. Thaw shoots architect Stanford White at the roof garden theatre of Madison Square Garden (designed by White) in New York City.
* June 28 – Osage Allotment Act allocates land to members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma.
* June 29 – Mesa Verde is declared a National Park.
* June 30 – The United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act.

### July–September

* July 11 – Murder of Grace Brown, a factory worker whose killing causes a nationwide sensation.
* July 14 – Gary, Indiana is founded by the United States Steel Corporation.
* August 23 – Unable to control a rebellion in the newly formed Cuban Republic, President Tomás Estrada Palma requests U.S. intervention.
* September 5 – Bradbury Robinson of St. Louis University throws the first legal forward pass in an American football game.
* September 22 – Atlanta race riot: Race riots in Atlanta, Georgia result in 27 people killed and the Black-owned business district severely damaged.
* September 24 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower, Wyoming as the nation's first National Monument.
* September 26 – The first concert of the Telharmonium, the first music synthesizer, is presented at Telharmonic Hall, Broadway at 39th St., New York City.
* September 30 – The first Gordon Bennett Cup in ballooning is held, starting in Paris. The winning team, piloting the balloon United States, lands in Fylingdales, Yorkshire, England, UK.

### October–December

* October 1 – The Madeira School, a private boarding school for girls, opens with 28 students attending classes in two buildings on 19th Street, just off Dupont Circle in downtown Washington, D.C.
* October 11 – The San Francisco public school board sparks a United States diplomatic crisis with Japan, by ordering Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools.
* October 14 – The Chicago White Sox win their First World Series by defeating their crosstown rival Chicago Cubs 4 games to 2 at South Side Park (III)
* November 6 – B. B. Comer is elected the 33rd governor of Alabama defeating Asa E. Stratton.
* November 9 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt leaves for a trip to Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal (the first time a sitting president of the United States makes an official trip outside of the United States).
* December 4 – Alpha Phi Alpha, the first inter-collegiate Greek-letter Fraternity established for African Americans, is founded at Cornell University.
* December 8 – The Petrified Forest, Arizona is designated a National Monument.
* December 10 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating peace in the Russo-Japanese War (1905).

### Undated

* The muffuletta sandwich is invented in New Orleans, Louisiana.

### Ongoing

* Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)
* Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937)
* Black Patch Tobacco Wars (1904–1909)

## Births
### January–February

* January 7
** Red Allen, trumpet player (died 1967)
** Bobbi Trout, pilot (died 2003)
* January 14 – William Bendix, actor (died 1964)
* January 22 – Robert E. Howard, pulp fiction writer (suicide 1936)
* February 4 – Clyde Tombaugh, astronomer (died 1997)
* February 10
** Lon Chaney Jr., actor (died 1973)
** Erik Rhodes, actor (died 1990)
* February 17 – Elizabeth M. Ramsey research physician (died 1993)
* February 20 – John Kenley, theatrical producer (died 2009)
* February 28 – Bugsy Siegel, gangster (killed 1947)

### March–April

* March 4 – Charles Rudolph Walgreen Jr., businessman (died 2007)
* March 6 – Lou Costello, actor and comedian, half of Abbott & Costello team (died 1959)
* March 20 – Ozzie Nelson, actor and band leader (died 1975)
* March 26 – H. Radclyffe Roberts, entomologist and museum administrator (died 1982)
* April 4 – John Cameron Swayze, journalist (died 1995)
* April 22 – Eddie Albert, actor (died 2005)
* April 24 – William Joyce, fascist propagandist (executed 1946 in the United Kingdom)
* April 25 – William J. Brennan, Supreme Court Justice (died 1997)

### May–June

* May 3 – Mary Astor, actress and writer (died 1987)
* May 11
** Jacqueline Cochran, aviator (died 1980)
** Ethel Weed, promoter of women's rights in Japan (died 1975)
** Richard Arvin Overton, American war veteran (WWII) ( died 2018)
* May 12 – Maurice Ewing, geophysicist and oceanographer (died 1974)
* May 19 – Bruce Bennett, athlete and actor (died 2007)
* May 23 – Allan Scott, screenwriter (died 1995)
* May 28 – Phil Regan, actor (died 1996)
* June 3 – Josephine Baker, actress (died 1975 in France)
* June 19 – Earl W. Bascom, rodeo pioneer, artist, inventor (died 1995)
* June 22 – Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author and aviator (died 2001)
* June 26 – Viktor Schreckengost, industrial designer (died 2008)

### July–August

* July 1 – Estée Lauder, cosmetics entrepreneur (died 2004)
* July 7 – Satchel Paige, baseball player (died 1982)
* July 18 – S. I. Hayakawa, Canadian-born American academic and politician, U.S. Senator from California from 1977 to 1983 (died 1992)
* August 6 – Vic Dickenson, trombonist (died 1984)
* August 9 – Robert L. Surtees, cinematographer (died 1985)
* August 12 – Tedd Pierce, animator (died 1972)
* August 17 – Hazel Bishop, chemist and inventor of "no-smear" lipstick (died 1998)
* August 19 – Philo Farnsworth, American inventor and television pioneer (died 1971)
* August 27 – Ed Gein, serial killer (died 1984)

### September–October

* September 5 – Shimon Agranat, American-born president of the Supreme Court of Israel (died 1992)
* September 17
** Raymond D. Mindlin, mechanician (died 1987)
** Edgar Wayburn, environmentalist (died 2010)
* September 21 – Henry Beachell, plant breeder (died 2006)
* September 27 – Alma Vessells John, nurse, broadcast personality and civil rights activist (died 1986)
* October 6 – Janet Gaynor, actress (died 1984)
* October 7 – James E. Webb, government administrator (died 1992)
* October 15
** Hiram Fong, businessman and U.S. Senator from Hawaii from 1959 to 1977 (died 2004)
** Alicia Patterson, newspaper editor (died 1963)
* October 23 – Gertrude Ederle, swimmer (died 2003)
* October 27 – Earle Cabell, politician (died 1975)

### November–December

* November 1 – Johnny Indrisano, boxer and actor (died 1968)
* November 5 – Fred Lawrence Whipple, astronomer (died 2004)
* November 14 – Louise Brooks, actress (died 1985)
* November 15 – Curtis LeMay, U.S.A.F. general, vice-presidential candidate (died 1990)
* November 18 – George Wald, scientist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1997)
* December 9 – Grace Hopper, computer scientist and naval officer (died 1992)
* December 11 – Herman Welker, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1951 to 1957 (died 1957)
* December 27 – Oscar Levant, pianist, composer, author, comedian and actor (died 1972)

## Deaths

* January 25
** John S. Harris, United States Senator from Louisiana from 1868 till 1871 (born 1825)
** Joseph Wheeler, U.S. Army general and politician (born 1836)
* February 9 – Paul Laurence Dunbar, poet and publisher (born 1872)
* February 18 – John B. Stetson, hat manufacturer and inventor of the cowboy hat (born 1830)
* February 27 – Samuel Pierpont Langley, astronomer, physicist and aeronautics pioneer (born 1834)
* March 4 – John Schofield, 28th United States Secretary of War and Commanding General of the United States Army (born 1831)
* March 13 – Susan B. Anthony, civil rights and women's suffrage activist (born 1820)
* April 11
** James Anthony Bailey, circus ringmaster (born 1847)
** Francis Pharcellus Church, editor and publisher (born 1839)
* April 24 – Mary Hunt, temperance activist (born 1830)
* April 25 – John Knowles Paine, composer (born 1839)
* May 12 – Gabriel C. Wharton, civil engineer and Confederate general (born 1824)
* May 14 – Carl Schurz, German-born statesman (born 1829)
* May 15 – John K. Bucklyn, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1834)
* June 17 – Harry Nelson Pillsbury, chess champion (born 1872)
* June 25 – Stanford White, architect (born 1853)
* September 20 – Robert R. Hitt, 13th Assistant Secretary of State (born 1834)
* September 21 – Samuel Arnold, conspirator involved in the plot to kidnap U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865 (born 1834)
* October 6 – Buck Ewing, American baseball player New York Giants and MLB Hall of Famer (born 1859)
* October 9 – Joseph Glidden, inventor of barbed wire (born 1813)
* October 16 – Varina Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis, First Lady of the Confederate States of America (born 1826)
* October 17 – James D. Walker, United States Senator from Arkansas from 1879 till 1885 (born 1830)
* November 4 – John H. Ketcham, politician (born 1832)
* November 23 – Willard Warner, United States Senator from Alabama from 1868 till 1871 (born 1826)
* December 12 – Arthur Brown, United States Senator from Utah from 1896 till 1897 (born 1843)
* December 22 – Richard S. Rust, abolitionist (born 1815)
* December 30 – Thomas M. Bowen, United States Senator from Colorado from 1883 till 1889 (born 1835)
* December 31 – Donelson Caffery, United States Senator from Louisiana from 1892 till 1901 (born 1835)