1902

Events from the year **1902 in the United States**.

Governors
* Governor of Alabama: William D. Jelks (Democratic)
* Governor of Arkansas: Jeff Davis ([Democratic)
* Governor of California: Henry Gage (Republican)
* Governor of Colorado: James Bradley Orman (Democratic)
* Governor of Connecticut: George P. McLean (Republican)
* Governor of Delaware: John Hunn (Republican)
* Governor of Florida: William Sherman Jennings (Democratic)
* Governor of Georgia: Allen D. Candler (Democratic) (until October 25), Joseph M. Terrell (Democratic) (starting October 25)
* Governor of Idaho: Frank W. Hunt (Democratic)
* Governor of Illinois: Richard Yates Jr. (Republican)
* Governor of Indiana: Winfield T. Durbin (Republican)
* Governor of Iowa: Leslie M. Shaw (Republican) (until January 16), Albert B. Cummins (Republican) (starting January 16)
* Governor of Kansas: William E. Stanley (Republican)
* Governor of Kentucky: J. C. W. Beckham (Democratic)
* Governor of Louisiana: William Wright Heard (Democratic)
* Governor of Maine: John Fremont Hill (Republican)
* Governor of Maryland: John Walter Smith (Democratic)
* Governor of Massachusetts: Winthrop Murray Crane (Republican)
* Governor of Michigan: Aaron T. Bliss (Republican)
* Governor of Minnesota: Samuel Rinnah Van Sant (Republican)
* Governor of Mississippi: Andrew H. Longino (Democratic)
* Governor of Missouri: Alexander Monroe Dockery (Democratic)
* Governor of Montana: Joseph Toole (Democratic)
* Governor of Nebraska: Ezra P. Savage (Republican)
* Governor of Nevada: Reinhold Sadler (Silver)
* Governor of New Hampshire: Chester B. Jordan (Republican)
* Governor of New Jersey: Foster MacGowan Voorhees (Republican) (until January 21), Franklin Murphy (Republican) (starting January 21)
* Governor of New York: Benjamin Barker Odell Jr. (Republican)
* Governor of North Carolina: Charles Brantley Aycock (Democratic)
* Governor of North Dakota: Frank White (Republican)
* Governor of Ohio: George K. Nash (Republican)
* Governor of Oregon: T. T. Geer (Republican)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: William A. Stone (Republican)
* Governor of Rhode Island: Charles D. Kimball (Republican)
* Governor of South Carolina: Miles Benjamin McSweeney (Democratic)
* Governor of South Dakota: Charles N. Herreid (Republican)
* Governor of Tennessee: Benton McMillin (Democratic)
* Governor of Texas: Joseph D. Sayers (Democratic)
* Governor of Utah: Heber Manning Wells (Republican)
* Governor of Vermont: William W. Stickney (Republican) (until October 3), John G. McCullough (Republican) (starting October 3)
* Governor of Virginia: James Hoge Tyler (Democratic) (until January 1), Andrew Jackson Montague (Democratic) (starting January 1)
* Governor of Washington: Henry McBride (Republican)
* Governor of West Virginia: Albert B. White (Republican)
* Governor of Wisconsin: Robert M. La Follette Sr. (Republican)
* Governor of Wyoming: DeForest Richards (Republican)

Lieutenant Governors
* Lieutenant Governor of California: Jacob H. Neff (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Colorado: David Courtney Coates (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Edwin O. Keeler (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Idaho: Thomas F. Terrell (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: William Northcott (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Newton W. Gilbert (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: James C. Milliman (Republican) (until January 16), John Herriott (Republican) (starting January 16)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Harry E. Richter (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Albert Estopinal (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: John L. Bates (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Orrin W. Robinson (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: Lyndon A. Smith (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: James T. Harrison (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: John Adams Lee (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Montana: Frank G. Higgins (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: James R. Judge (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: Timothy L. Woodruff (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Wilfred D. Turner (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota: David Bartlett (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Ohio:
	+ until January 13: John A. Caldwell (Republican)
	+ January 13-May 1: Carl L. Nippert (Republican)
	+ May 1-June 26: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania: John P. S. Gobin (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: vacant (until February 18), George L. Shepley (Republican) (starting February 18)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: James H. Tillman (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota: George W. Snow (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: Newton H. White (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: James Browning (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Martin F. Allen (Republican) (until October 3), Zed S. Stanton (Republican) (starting October 3)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Edward Echols (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Joseph Edward Willard (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Washington: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Jesse Stone (Republican) (until May 11), vacant (starting May 11)

## Events

### January - March

* 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 Sherman Act.
* February 22 – Senators Benjamin Tillman and John L. McLaurin, both of South Carolina, have a fist fight while Congress is in session. Both Tillman and McLaurin are censured by the Senate on February 28.
* February 28 – 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.

### April - June

* 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.
* April 14 – The first J. C. Penney department store opens in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
* 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 in the United States.
* 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 24 – Target Corporation, the department store chain, is founded.

### July - September

* 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.
* 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 disaster: 115 people are killed during a stampede at the church in Birmingham, Alabama.

### October - December

* 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 16 – A newspaper cartoon inspires creation of the first teddy bear by Morris Michtom in the U.S.
* November 30 – On the American frontier, the second-in-command of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, Harvey Logan ("Kid Curry"), is involved in a shoot out in Knoxville, TN and escaped.
* December 9 – The Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903 occurs (until February 19, 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.

## Memoriam

* January 15 – Alpheus Hyatt, zoologist and paleontologist (aged 63; Cambridge, MA, USA)
* February 18 – Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Co. (aged 90; Yonkers, NY, USA)
* March 12 – John Peter Altgeld, 20th Governor of Illinois (aged 54; Joliet, IL, USA)
* March 14 – Daniel H. Reynolds, Confederate Brigadier General (aged 69; Lage Village, AR, USA)
* April 3 – Esther Hobart Morris, first women justice of the peace in the United States (aged 87; Cheyenne, WY, USA)
* April 23 – Jesse Harper, politician of Illinois (aged 78; Danville, IL, USA)
* April 27 – Julius Sterling Morton, 3rd United States Secretary of Agriculture (aged 70; Lake Forest, IL, USA)
* May 5 – Bret Harte, short-story writer and poet (aged 65; Camberley, England, UK)
* May 26 – Almon Brown Strowger, inventor (aged 63; St. Petersburg, FL, USA)
* May 30 – Sylvester Pennoyer, 8th Governor of Oregon (aged 70; Portland, OR, USA)
* June 5 – Louis J. Weichmann, chief witness for the prosecution in the trial of the assassins of Abraham Lincoln (aged 59; Anderson, IN, USA)
* July 27 – Packy Dillon, baseball player (aged 49; Mehlville, MO, USA)
* August 10 – James McMillan, Canadian-born U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1889 to 1902 (aged 64; Manchester, MA, USA)
* September 26 – Levi Strauss, founder of Levi Strauss & Co. (aged 73; San Francisco, CA, USA)
* October 26 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, suffragist (aged 86; New York City, NY, USA)
* November 4 – Hale Johnson, attorney and politician (aged 55; Bogota, IL, USA)
* November 22 – Walter Reed, U.S. Army physician (aged 51; Washington, DC, USA)
* November 27 – George S. Cook, prominent early American photographer (aged 83; Charleston, SC, USA)
* November 29 – John Elliott Ward, politician and diplomat (aged 88; Dorchester, GA, USA)
* December 4 – Charles Dow, founder of Dow Jones & Company and The Wall Street Journal (aged 51; Brooklyn, NY, USA)
* December 7
	+ Thomas Nast, political cartoonist (aged 62; Guayaquil, Ecuador)
	+ Thomas Brackett Reed, politician (aged 63; Washington, DC, USA)
* December 14 – Julia Grant, First Lady of the United States as wife of Ulysses S. Grant (aged 76; Washington, DC, USA)
* December 22 – Dwight M. Sabin, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1883 to 1889 (aged 59; Chicago, IL, USA)
* December 26 – Mary Hartwell Catherwood, author and poet (aged 55; Chicago, IL, USA)