Key Events in American History: 1874

President: Ulysses S. Grant

VP: Henry Wilson

Date, Event

Mar 16th Pinkerton Agency engages in a gunfight with the Younger Brothers in Osceola, MO

May 8th Massachusetts is the first state to limit the workday to 10 hours for women, 6 days a week

May 20th Levi Strauss & Jacob Davis receive a patent for blue jeans. Price is $13.50 per dozen.

Jul 1st Philadelphia opens the first zoo in the U.S.

Jul 1st Charley Ross, a 4 year old, is the first victim of a kidnapping for ransom in America

Aug 2nd Gold is discovered in Black Hills, Dakota Territory

Aug 8th A silver deposit is discovered in Mohave County, AZ producing $800,000 in ore over the next 30 years

Nov 7th Harper's Weekly publishes a cartoon of an elephant symbolizing the Republican Party for the first time

Nov 25th The Greenback Party is established as a political party made up of farmers hurt by the Panic of 1873

Dec 12th The James brothers, Jim Younger, Bud McDaniel & Clell Miller rob $25,000 from a train in Muncie, KS

Reconstruction era (1865-1877)

Depression of 1873-1879

First reports of Arizona's 'Lost Dutchman Mine' produces $60,000 to miners

The Cavalry reports over 230 Indians killed in various fights with Indians in Arizona Territory alone

Business failures total 5,830; Unemployment rate is near 14%

C. Goodyear, Jr. invents the shoe welt stitcher

Jan 29th John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (Financier/Philanthropist)

Feb 24th Honus Wagner (Athlete)

Mar 24th Harry Houdini (Magician)

Mar 26th Robert Frost (Poet)

Aug 10th Herbert Hoover (31st President)

Nov 30th Winston Churchill (Politician)

Mar 8th Millard Fillmore (13th President)

Jun 8th Cochise (Chief of the Chiricahua Apache Indians)