1874

Events from the year **1874 in the United States**.

Governors
* Governor of Alabama: David P. Lewis (Republican) (until November 24), George S. Houston (Democratic) (starting November 24)
* Governor of Arkansas: Elisha Baxter (Republican) (until November 12), Augustus Hill Garland (Democratic) (starting November 12)
* Governor of California: Newton Booth (Republican)
* Governor of Connecticut: Charles R. Ingersoll (Democratic)
* Governor of Delaware: James Ponder (Democratic)
* Governor of Florida: Ossian B. Hart (Republican) (until March 18), Marcellus Stearns (Republican) (starting March 18)
* Governor of Georgia: James M. Smith (Democratic)
* Governor of Illinois: John Lourie Beveridge (Republican)
* Governor of Indiana: Thomas A. Hendricks (Democratic)
* Governor of Iowa: Cyrus C. Carpenter (Republican)
* Governor of Kansas: Thomas A. Osborn (Republican)
* Governor of Kentucky: Preston H. Leslie (Democratic)
* Governor of Louisiana: William Pitt Kellogg (Republican)
* Governor of Maine: Sidney Perham (Republican) (until January 7), Nelson Dingley Jr. (Republican) (starting January 7)
* Governor of Maryland: William Pinkney Whyte (Democratic) (until March 4), James B. Groome (Democratic) (starting March 4)
* Governor of Massachusetts: William B. Washburn (Republican) (until April 29), Thomas Talbot (Republican) (starting April 29)
* Governor of Michigan: John J. Bagley (Republican)
* Governor of Minnesota: Horace Austin (Republican) (until January 7), Cushman K. Davis (Republican) (starting January 7)
* Governor of Mississippi: Ridgley C. Powers (Republican) (until January 4), Adelbert Ames (Republican) (starting January 4)
* Governor of Missouri: Silas Woodson (Democratic)
* Governor of Nebraska: Robert Wilkinson Furnas (Republican)
* Governor of Nevada: Lewis R. Bradley (Democratic)
* Governor of New Hampshire: Ezekiel A. Straw (Republican) (until June 3), James A. Weston (Democratic) (starting June 3)
* Governor of New Jersey: Joel Parker (Democratic)
* Governor of New York: John Adams Dix (Republican)
* Governor of North Carolina: Tod Robinson Caldwell (Republican) (until July 11), Curtis Hooks Brogden (Republican) (starting July 11)
* Governor of Ohio: Edward F. Noyes (Republican) (until January 12), William Allen (Democratic) (starting January 12)
* Governor of Oregon: La Fayette Grover (Democratic)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: John F. Hartranft (Republican)
* Governor of Rhode Island: Henry Howard (Republican)
* Governor of South Carolina: Franklin I. Mose Jr. (Republican) (until December 1), Daniel Henry Chamberlain (Republican) (starting December 1)
* Governor of Tennessee: John C. Brown (Democratic)
* Governor of Texas: Edmund J. Davis (Republican) (until January 15), Richard Coke (Democratic) (starting January 15)
* Governor of Vermont: Julius Converse (Republican) (until October 8), Asahel Peck (Republican) (starting October 8)
* Governor of Virginia: Gilbert Carlton Walker (Democratic) (until January 1), James L. Kemper (Democratic) (starting January 1)
* Governor of West Virginia: John J. Jacob (Democratic)
* Governor of Wisconsin: Cadwallader C. Washburn (Republican) (until January 5), William Robert Taylor (Democratic) (starting January 5)

Lieutenant Governors
* Lieutenant Governor of Alabama: Alexander McKinstry (Republican) (until November 26), Robert F. Ligon (Democratic) (starting November 26)
* Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas: Volney V. Smith (Republican) (until November 12), abolished thereafter
* Lieutenant Governor of California: Romualdo Pacheco (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: George G. Sill (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Florida: Marcellus Stearns (Republican) (until month and day unknown), vacant (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: John Early (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Leonidas Sexton (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: Henry C. Bulis (Republican) (until month and day unknown), Joseph Dysart (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Elias Sleeper Stover (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: John G. Carlisle (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Caesar Antoine (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Thomas Talbot (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Henry H. Holt (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: William H. Yale (Republican) (until January 9), Alphonso Barto (Republican) (starting January 9)
* Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Alexander K. Davis (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Charles Phillip Johnson (Liberal Republican) (starting January 3)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: Frank Denver (until month and day unknown), Pressly C. Hyman (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: John C. Robinson (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Curtis Hooks Brogden (Republican) (until month and day unknown), vacant (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: Jacob Mueller (Republican) (until January 12), Alphonso Hart (Republican) (starting January 12)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Charles C. Van Zandt (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Richard Howell Gleaves (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: A. T. Lacey (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: vacant (until January 15), Richard B. Hubbard (Democratic) (starting January 15)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Russell S. Taft (Republican) (until October 8), Lyman G. Hinckley (Republican) (starting October 8)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: John Lawrence Marye Jr. (Conservative) (until January 1), Robert E. Withers (Democratic) (starting January 1)
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: vacant (until January 5), Charles D. Parker (Democratic) (starting January 5)

## Events

* January 1 – New York City annexes The Bronx.
* February 21 – The *Oakland Daily Tribune* publishes its first newspaper.
* March 18 – Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trading rights.
* March 31 – The Young Men's Hebrew Association in Manhattan (which still operates today as the 92nd Street Y) is founded.
* May 20 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets. The price is $13.50 per dozen.
* July 1
	+ Philadelphia Zoo opens, the first public zoo in the U.S.
	+ Four-year-old Charley Ross, America's first major kidnapping for ransom victim, is taken from his home in Philadelphia.
	+ The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, with cylindrical platen and QWERTY keyboard, is first marketed.
* November 4 – Democrats regain the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time since 1860.
* November 7 – *Harper's Weekly* publishes a political cartoon by Thomas Nast considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the Republican Party.
* November 9 – The Sigma Kappa sorority is founded at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, by Mary Caffrey Low, Elizabeth Gorham Hoag, Ida Fuller, Frances Mann, and Louise Helen Coburn.
* November 11 – The Gamma Phi Beta sorority is founded at Syracuse University. This is the first women's Greek letter organization to be called a sorority.
* November 24 – Inventor Joseph Glidden patents barbed wire.
* November 25 – The United States Greenback Party is established as a "National Independent" political party, composed primarily of farmers financially hurt by the Panic of 1873.
* November 28 – King Kalākaua's 1874–75 state visit to the United States begins when the ship carrying him from Hawaii, USS *Benicia*, docks in San Francisco.

## Memoriam

* January 7 – John Burton Thompson, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1853 to 1859 (aged 63; Harrodsburg, KY, USA)
* January 17 – Chang and Eng Bunker, Thai-American conjoined twin brothers (aged 62; Mount Airy, NC, USA)
* February 24 – John Bachman, Lutheran minister, social activist and naturalist (aged 84; Charleston, SC, USA)
* March 8 – Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the U.S. from 1850 to 1853, and 12th Vice President of the U.S. from 1849 to 1850 (aged 74; Buffalo, NY, USA)
* March 11 – Charles Sumner, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts from 1851 to 1874 (aged 63; Washington, DC, USA)
* May 20 – Paul Jennings, slave of James Madison, writer (aged 75; Washington, DC, USA)
* June 8 – Cochise, one of the greatest leaders of the Apache Indians, dies on the Chiricahua reservation in southeastern Arizona (aged 69; Dragoon Mountains, AZ Territory, USA)
* October 6 – Samuel Kier, industrialist (aged 61; Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
* November 20 – Jackson Morton, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1849 to 1855 (aged 80; Santa Rosa County, FL, USA)
* December 28 – Gerrit Smith, social reformer, abolitionist, politician, and philanthropist (aged 77; New York City, NY, USA)
* December 31 – Eliza Seymour Lee, pastry chef and restaurateur (aged 74; Charleston, SC, USA)