1894

Events from the year **1894 in the United States**.

Governors
* Governor of Alabama: Thomas G. Jones (Democratic) (until December 1), William C. Oates (Democratic) (starting December 1)
* Governor of Arkansas: William Meade Fishback (Democratic)
* Governor of California: Henry Markham (Republican)
* Governor of Colorado: Davis Hanson Waite (People's)
* Governor of Connecticut: Luzon B. Morris (Democratic)
* Governor of Delaware: Robert J. Reynolds (Democratic)
* Governor of Florida: Henry L. Mitchell (Democratic)
* Governor of Georgia: William J. Northen (Democratic) (until October 27), William Yates Atkinson (Democratic) (starting October 27)
* Governor of Idaho: William J. McConnell (Republican)
* Governor of Illinois: John Peter Altgeld (Democratic)
* Governor of Indiana: Claude Matthews (Democratic)
* Governor of Iowa: Horace Boies (Democratic) (until January 11), Frank D. Jackson (Republican) (starting January 11)
* Governor of Kansas: Lorenzo D. Lewelling (Populist)
* Governor of Kentucky: John Y. Brown (Democratic)
* Governor of Louisiana: Murphy James Foster Sr. (Democratic)
* Governor of Maine: Henry B. Cleaves (Republican)
* Governor of Maryland: Frank Brown (Democratic)
* Governor of Massachusetts: William E. Russell (Democratic) (until January 4), Frederic T. Greenhalge (Republican) (starting January 4)
* Governor of Michigan: John T. Rich (Republican)
* Governor of Minnesota: Knute Nelson (Republican)
* Governor of Mississippi: John M. Stone (Democratic)
* Governor of Missouri: William Joel Stone (Democratic)
* Governor of Montana: John E. Rickards (Republican)
* Governor of Nebraska: Lorenzo Crounse (Republican)
* Governor of Nevada: Roswell K. Colcord (Republican)
* Governor of New Hampshire: John Butler Smith (Republican)
* Governor of New Jersey: George Theodore Werts (Democratic)
* Governor of New York: Roswell P. Flower (Democratic)
* Governor of North Carolina: Elias Carr (Democratic)
* Governor of North Dakota: Eli C. D. Shortridge (Democratic)
* Governor of Ohio: William McKinley (Republican)
* Governor of Oregon: Sylvester Pennoyer (Democratic)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: Robert E. Pattison (Democratic)
* Governor of Rhode Island: D. Russell Brown (Republican)
* Governor of South Carolina: Benjamin Ryan Tillman (Democratic) (until December 4), John Gary Evans (Democratic) (starting December 4)
* Governor of South Dakota: Charles H. Sheldon (Republican)
* Governor of Tennessee: Peter Turney (Democratic)
* Governor of Texas: James Stephen Hogg (Democratic)
* Governor of Vermont: Levi K. Fuller (Republican) (until October 4), Urban A. Woodbury (Republican) (starting October 4)
* Governor of Virginia: Philip W. McKinney (Democratic) (until January 1), Charles Triplett O'Ferrall (Democratic) (starting January 1)
* Governor of Washington: John McGraw (Republican)
* Governor of West Virginia: William A. MacCorkle (Democratic)
* Governor of Wisconsin: George Wilbur Peck (Democratic)
* Governor of Wyoming: John E. Osborne (Democratic)

Lieutenant Governors
* Lieutenant Governor of California: John B. Reddick (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Colorado: David Hopkinson Nichols (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Ernest Cady (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Idaho: F. B. Willis (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Joseph B. Gill (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Mortimer Nye (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: Samuel L. Bestow (Democratic) (until January 11), Warren S. Dungan (Republican) (starting January 11)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Percy Daniels (Populist)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Mitchell Cary Alford (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Hiram R. Lott (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Roger Wolcott (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: J. Wight Giddings (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: David M. Clough (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: M. M. Evans (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: John B. O'Meara (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Montana: Alexander Campbell Botkin (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska: Thomas J. Majors (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: Joseph Poujade (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: William F. Sheehan (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Rufus A. Doughton (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota: Elmer D. Wallace (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: Andrew L. Harris (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania: Louis Arthur Watres (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Melville Bull (Republican) (until month and day unknown), Edwin Allen (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Washington H. Timmerman (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota: Charles N. Herreid (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: William C. Dismukes (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: Martin McNulty Crane (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: F. Stewart Stranahan (Republican) (until October 4), Zophar M. Mansur (Republican) (starting October 4)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: James Hoge Tyler (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Robert Craig Kent (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Washington: F. H. Luce (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Charles Jonas (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), vacant (starting month and day unknown)

## Events

* January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film.
* January 9 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard, in Lexington, Massachusetts.
* February 7 – 5-month Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894 begins
* February 9 – Milton S. Hershey establishes the Hershey Chocolate Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
* February 17 – Outlaw John Wesley Hardin is released from prison.
* March 12 – Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time.
* March 25 – Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, departs from Massillon, Ohio for Washington, D.C.
* April 21 – A bituminous coal miners' strike closes mines across the central U.S.
* May 1
	+ Coxey's Army arrives in Washington, D.C.
	+ The May Day Riots of 1894 break out in Cleveland, Ohio.
* May 11 – Pullman Strike: Three thousand Pullman Palace Car Company workers go on a "wildcat" (without union approval) strike to protest lowered wages without an equivalent reduction in expenses charged in the company town of Pullman, Chicago.
* July 1 – A fire at the site of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago destroys most of the remaining buildings.
* July 4 – The short-lived Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole.
* September 1 – Great Hinckley Fire: A forest fire in Hinckley, Minnesota kills more than 450 people.
* September 4 – In New York City, 12,000 tailors strike against sweatshop working conditions.
* September 30 – New York Giants defeat Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 0 to win the First Temple Cup in the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.
* October 3 – Pomfret School is founded in Connecticut.
* November 1 – The first issue of *Billboard* magazine is published in Cincinnati, Ohio by William Donaldson and James Hennegan. Initially, it covers the advertising and bill posting industry, and is at the time known as *Billboard Advertising*.
* November 5 – West Palm Beach, Florida is incorporated as a city.
* November 6 – Republican win by a landslide in the House of Representatives elections, which sets the stage for the decisive 1896 presidential election.
* December 6 – Kate Chopin's feminist short story "The Story of an Hour" is first published, in the magazine *Vogue*.

## Memoriam

* January 15 – Henry Mower Rice, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1858 to 1863 (aged 77; San Antonio, TX, USA)
* February 4 – Morton S. Wilkinson, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1859 to 1865 (aged 75; Mankato, MN, USA)
* February 28 – James W. McDill, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1881 to 1883 (aged 59; Creston, IA, USA)
* March 2
	+ Jubal Early, Confederate general (aged 77; Lynchburg, VA, USA)
	+ William H. Osborn, railroad tycoon (aged 73; New York City, NY, USA)
* March 3 – Ned Williamson, baseball player (aged 36; Willow Springs, AR, USA)
* March 26 – Alfred H. Colquitt, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1883 to 1894 (aged 69; Washington, DC, USA)
* March 28 – George Ticknor Curtis, author, lawyer and historian (aged 81; New York City, NY, USA)
* April 7 – Benjamin Franklin King Jr., poet and humorist (aged 37; Bowling Green, KY, USA)
* April 14 – Zebulon Baird Vance, Confederate military officer in the American Civil War, the 37th and 43rd Governor of North Carolina, U.S. Senator (aged 63; Washington, DC, USA)
* April 15 – James Harvey, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1874 to 1877 (aged 60; Riley County, KS, USA)
* April 30 – Francis B. Stockbridge, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1887 to 1894 (aged 68; Chicago, IL, USA)
* June 17 – William Hart, landscape painter (aged 71; Mount Vernon, NY, USA)
* June 20 – Bishop W. Perkins, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1892 to 1893 (aged 52; Washington, DC, USA)
* June 24 – George Peter Alexander Healy, American portrait painter (aged 80; Chicago, IL, USA)
* July 19 – William B. Avery, Union Army soldier and Medal of Honor recipient (aged 52; Bayside, RI, USA)
* August 14 – John Quincy Adams II, politician (aged 60; Quincy, MA, USA)
* August 15 – Arthur Rotch, architect (aged 44; Beverly, MA, USA)
* September 1
	+ Nathaniel P. Banks, 24th Governor of Massachusetts (aged 78; Waltham, MA, USA)
	+ Boston Corbett, England-born Union Army soldier who shot and killed Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth (aged 62; Hinckley, MN, USA)
	+ Samuel J. Kirkwood, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1881 to 1882 (aged 80; Iowa City, IA, USA)
* September 30 – Absolom M. West, planter, Confederate general, politician, railroad president and labor organizer (aged 76; Holly Springs, MS, USA)
* October 7
	+ Andrew Gregg Curtin, 15th Governor of Pennsylvania (aged 79; Bellefonte, PA, USA)
	+ Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., physician and writer (aged 85; Boston, MA, USA)
* October 15 – Macon Bolling Allen, first African American to become a lawyer, argue before a jury, and hold a judicial position in the United States (aged 78; Washington, DC, USA)
* October 18 – William F. Raynolds, military engineer (aged 74; Detroit, MI, USA)
* November 30 – Joseph E. Brown, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1880 to 1891 (aged 73; Atlanta, GA, USA)
* December 19 – James L. Alcorn, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1871 to 1877 (aged 78; Friars Point, MS, USA)