1870 in the United States

1870 in the United States
Decades:	1850s 1860s – 1870s – 1880s 1890s
Years:	1867 1868 1869 – 1870 – 1871 1872 1873
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37 stars (1867 – 1877)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1865–1918)

Events from the year 1870 in the United States.

Incumbents

• President: Ulysses S. Grant (Republican)
• Vice President: Schuyler Colfax (Republican)
• Chief Justice: Salmon P. Chase
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: James G. Blaine (R-Maine)
• Congress: 41st

Events

January–March

February 25: Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first African American Congressman.

• January 1 – Plans for the Brooklyn Bridge are completed.
• January 3 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.
• January 10 – John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.
• January 15 – A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey ("A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly).
• January 26 – Reconstruction: Virginia rejoins the Union.
• January 27 – The first college sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, is established at DePauw University.
• February 3 – The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing African-Americans the right to vote, is passed.
• February 10 – Anaheim, California is incorporated.
• February 10 – The YWCA is founded in New York City.
• February 12 – Women gain the right to vote in Utah Territory.
• February 23 – Military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.
• February 25 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.
• February 26 – In New York City, the first pneumatic subway is opened.
• March 19 – The Ohio Legislature passes the Cannon Act, thereby establishing the Ohio Agriculture and Mechanical College, later Ohio State University.
• March 24 – Syracuse University is established and officially opens.
• March 30 – The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving blacks the right to vote, is ratified.
• March 30 – Texas is readmitted to the Union following Reconstruction.
• March 31 – Thomas Mundy Peterson is the first African-American to vote in an election.

April–June

• April – The Chicago Base Ball Club, later to be known as the Chicago White Stockings, and ultimately the Chicago Cubs, play their first game against the St. Louis Unions of the National Association of Base Ball Players, an amateur league.
• June 22 – The U.S. Congress creates the United States Department of Justice.
• June 26 – Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States.

July–September

• July 15 – Reconstruction: Georgia becomes the last former Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union, and the C.S.A. is dissolved.
• September 6 – Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming, becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally since 1807.
• September 18 – Old Faithful Geyser is observed and named by Henry D. Washburn during the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition to Yellowstone.

October–December

• November 1 – In the United States, the newly created Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) makes its first official meteorological forecast: "High winds at Chicago and Milwaukee... and along the Lakes".

Undated

• Underwood Constitution: A controversial revised Constitution of Virginia goes into effect following a drafting convention that was dominated by the Radical Republicans led by John Underwood.

Ongoing

• Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
• Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)

Births

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Deaths

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External links

• Media related to 1870 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons