1883

Events from the year 1883 in the United States.
==Incumbents==
===Federal Government===
* President: Chester A. Arthur (R-NY)
* Vice President: vacant
* Chief Justice: Morrison Waite (OH)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: J. Warren Keifer (R-OH) (until March 4), John G. Carlisle (D-KY) (starting December 3)
* Congress: 47th (until March 4), 48th (starting March 4)
==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 (it was built by Thomas Edison).
* 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 1
** 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 1 – President Chester A. Arthur Opens the First Southern Exposition in Louisville.
* August 2 – 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.
* September 5 – Mary F. Hoyt becomes the first woman appointed to the U.S. federal civil service (and the second person appointed by examination (in which she came top) instituted under the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act) 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 black Americans.
* 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.
==Sport==
* September 27 – The Boston Red Stockings clinch their First National League pennant with a 4–1 win over the Cleveland Blues.
==Memoriam==
* January 10 – Samuel Mudd, physician imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (aged 49; Waldorf, MD, USA)
* January 12 – Clark Mills, sculptor (aged 67; Washington, DC, USA)
* February 8 – Mary S. B. Shindler, poet (aged 72; Nacogodoches, TX, USA)
* February 10 – Marshall Jewell, 44th and 46th Governor of Connecticut (aged 57; New Haven, CT, USA)
* February 16 – Stephen P. Hempstead, 2nd Governor of Iowa from 1850 to 1854 (aged 70; Dubuque, IA, USA)
* March 4 – Alexander H. Stephens, only Vice President of the Confederate States of America (aged 71; Atlanta, GA, USA)
* March 15 – Henry C. Wayne, U.S. Army officer, Confederate brigadier general (aged 67; Savannah, GA, USA)
* March 26 – Joseph Saberton, U.S. Army private, Union Army (aged 52; Vanderburgh County, IN, USA)
* March 28 – Napoleon Bonaparte Buford, general and railroad executive (aged 76; Chicago, IL, USA)
* April 4 – Peter Cooper, industrialist, inventor, philanthropist and candidate for President of the U.S. (aged 92; New York City, NY, USA)
* April 6 – Benjamin Wright Raymond, politician, twice mayor of Chicago (aged 81; Chicago, IL, USA)
* April 28 – William M. Browne, politician and newsman, Acting Confederate States Secretary of State in 1862 (aged 59; Athens, GA, USA)
* May 15 – Josiah Gorgas, Northern-born Confederate general (aged 64; Tuscaloosa, AL, USA)
* June 14
** Charles Timothy Brooks, poet and translator (aged 69; Newport, RI, USA)
** Eugene Casserly, U.S. Senator from California from 1869 to 1873 (aged 62; San Francisco, CA, USA)
** Charles J. Jenkins, 44th Governor of Georgia (aged 78; Augusta, GA, USA)
* July 15 – General Tom Thumb, dwarf performer (aged 45; Bridgeport, CT, USA)
* 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 (aged 64; Havana, Cuba)
* July 23 – Ginery Twichell, transportation manager and politician (aged 71; Brookline, MA, USA)
* July 24 – Thomas Swann, politician and president of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from 1847 to 1853 (aged 74; Leesburg, VA, USA)
* July 27 – Montgomery Blair, politician and lawyer (aged 70; Silver Spring, MD, USA)
* September 16 – Junius Brutus Booth Jr., actor and theatre manager (aged 61; Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA, USA)
* October 4 – Henry Farnam, surveyor, railroad president and philanthropist (aged 79; New Haven, CT, USA)
* October 22 – Thomas Mayne Reid, novelist (aged 65; London, England, UK)
* November 20 – Augustus C. Dodge, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1848 to 1855 (aged 71; Burlington, IA, USA)
* November 24 – Albert Fitch Bellows, landscape painter (aged 54; Auburndale, MA, USA)
* November 26 – Sojourner Truth, African American abolitionist and women's rights activist (aged 86; Battle Creek, MI, USA)
* December 27 – Andrew A. Humphreys, general and civil engineer (aged 73; Washington, DC, USA)
==External links==
* 1883 in the United States
Category:United States History: Volume 11