Events from the year 1894 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
President: Grover Cleveland (D-New York) Vice President: Adlai E. Stevenson I (D-Illinois) Chief Justice: Melville Fuller (Illinois) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Charles Frederick Crisp (D-Georgia) Congress: 53rd
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 US. 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 – 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. 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.
Undated
Oil is discovered on the Osage Indian reservation, making the Osage the "richest group of people in the world". The Society of Beaux-Arts Architects is founded. The National Society of Pershing Rifles is founded at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Chatham Episcopal Institute (modern-day Chatham Hall) is founded as a girls' college-preparatory boarding school in Chatham, Virginia. Frederick W. Tamblyn founds Tamblyn Studio & School of Penmanship which later becomes Ziller of Kansas City, the oldest calligraphy studio in the U.S. National Civic League established. New York Giants defeat Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 0 to win the First Temple Cup in the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.
Ongoing
Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896) Gay Nineties (1890–1899) Progressive Era (1890s–1920s) Panic of 1893 (1893–1894)