1848 in the United States

1848 in the United States
Years:	1845 1846 1847 – 1848 – 1849 1850 1851
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30 stars (1848–51)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1789–1849)

Events from the year 1848 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: James K. Polk (D-Tennessee)
• Vice President: George M. Dallas (D-Pennsylvania)
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Robert Charles Winthrop (W-Massachusetts)
• Congress: 30th

Events

January–March

• January 24 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California.
• January 31 – The Washington Monument is established.
• February 2 – Mexican–American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the war and ceding to the United States virtually all of what is today the southwest of that country.

April–June

• April 3 – The Chicago Board of Trade is founded by 82 Chicago merchants and business leaders.
• May 19 – The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican-American War, is ratified by the Mexican government. (cf. February 2, above.)
• May 29 – Wisconsin is admitted as the 30th U.S. state (see History of Wisconsin).
• June 14–15 – The Liberty Party National Convention is held in Buffalo, New York. Presidential candidate Gerrit Smith established woman suffrage as a party plank.^[1][2]

July–September

• July 19 – Seneca Falls Convention: The first women's rights convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York.
• August 19 – California Gold Rush: The New York Herald breaks the news to the East Coast of the United States that there is a gold rush in California (although the rush started in January).
• September 12 – One of the successes of the Revolutions of 1848, the Swiss Federal Constitution, patterned on the US Constitution, enters into force, creating a federal republic and one of the first modern democratic states in Europe.
• September 13 – Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage incredibly survives a 3-foot-plus iron rod being driven through his head.

October–December

• November 1 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which later merges with Boston University School of Medicine), opens.
• November 7 – U.S. presidential election, 1848: Whig Zachary Taylor of Louisiana defeats Democrat Lewis Cass of Michigan in the first US presidential election held in every state on the same day.
• December 26 – The Phi Delta Theta fraternity is founded at Miami University.

No Fixed Date

• A cholera epidemic in New York kills 5,000.
• The Associated Press is founded in New York City in May 1846.
• The Boston Public Library is founded by an act of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts.
• The Shaker song Simple Gifts is written by Joseph Brackett in Alfred, Maine.
• The Illinois and Michigan Canal is completed.
• The University of Mississippi is founded.
• The University of Wisconsin–Madison is founded.
• Geneva College in Pennsylvania is founded.

Ongoing

• Mexican–American War (1846–1848)
• California Gold Rush (1848–1855)

Births

• March 26 – Edward O. Wolcott, United States Senator from Colorado from 1889 till 1901. (died 1905)
• May 10 – Lafayette Young, United States Senator from Iowa from 1910 till 1911. (died 1926)
• November 2 – Stephen Mallory II, United States Senator from Florida from 1897 till 1907. (died 1907)
• November 7 – B.B. Comer, United States Senator from Alabama in 1920. (died 1927)

Deaths

• February 23 – John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States from 1825 till 1829. (born 1767)
• April 29 – Chester Ashley, United States Senator from Arkansas from 1844 till 1848. (born 1790)
• October 25 – Dixon Hall Lewis, United States Senator from Alabama from 1844 till 1848. (born 1802)
• December 31 – Ambrose Hundley Sevier, United States Senator from Arkansas from 1836 till 1848. (born 1801)

Further reading

• The Emigrant's Hand-book, or, A directory and guide for persons emigrating to the United States of America; also, a concise description of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri and Iowa, and the western territories, and including a statement of the modes and expenses of travelling from New York to the interior, New York: J.H. Colton, 1848, OCLC 2604051 

References

External links

• Media related to 1848 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons