1902

Shiloh Baptist Church in 1902

1902 was the 31st year after the founding of the city of Birmingham.

Events

• September 17–19: The 1902 National Baptist Convention ended with more than 100 people dying in a stampede following remarks by Booker T. Washington at Shiloh Baptist Church.
• December 11: The Birmingham Musicians' Protective Association was chartered.
• December 21: The South Ensley streetcar line went into service.
• Robert Munger purchased Arlington Home.
• The town of North Birmingham was incorporated.
• West End Lodge No. 753 was chartered.
• A scarlet fever epidemic swept through Jefferson County.

Business

• June 13: Thomas Furnace No. 3 was blown in.
• The Daily Ledger returned to its earlier name, The Birmingham Ledger.
• The City of North Birmingham was incorporated.
• The Jobe-Rose Jewelry Company relocated to Birmingham from Columbus, Mississippi.
• The Oxmoor Furnaces were rebuilt again by TCI.
• The Peoples Bank and Trust Company was founded in Selma.
• Shook and Fletcher Supply Company was founded.
• The Sloss Iron & Steel Company acquired the assets of Sheffield Iron Company, becoming the Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Company.
• Smith & Montgomery became the Zac Smith Stationery Company.
• The St Louis & San Francisco Railroad acquired the Birmingham Belt Railroad.
• Samuel Kartus opened his Kartus Korner clothing store in Bessemer.
• Crawford Johnson founded the Birmingham Coca-Cola Bottling Company.
• The Alabama Manufacturing Co. cookware foundry opened in North Birmingham.

Education

• November: Booker College opened in Booker City.
• John Abercrombie succeeded William Wyman as President of the University of Alabama.
• Andrew P. Montague succeeded Frank M. Roof as president of Howard College.

Government

• Russell Cunningham was elected Lieutenant Governor of Alabama.
• William Jelks, after succeeding William J. Samford as Governor of Alabama after Samford's death, was elected to a full term as Governor.
• Robert A. Morris was elected auditor of Jefferson County.

Religion

• October 12: First Lutheran Church dedicated their second sanctuary at Avenue B and 19th Street South.
• Charles Beckwith succeeded Robert Barnwell as Episcopal Bishop of Alabama.
• Lorenzo Patterson succeeded Francis Brandon as pastor of Trinity Methodist Church (Southside).
• A Sunday School mission on Southside was started by John Murray, rector of the Church of the Advent, concurrent with a group of Advent parishioners forming the Brotherhood of St Andrew.

Sports

• October 18: The Alabama Polytechnic Institute defeated the University of Alabama 23-0 at the Slag Pile in a still-budding cross-state rivalry.
• The Birmingham Barons became part of the Southern Association baseball league in its inaugural season.
• Howard College fielded its first football team. Houston Gwin was the school's first football coach.
• Harry Vaughn returned to playing baseball after two years away.

Individuals

• June: Future Fire Chief Alf Brown joined the Birmingham Fire Department.
• W. P. G. Harding succeeded Nelson Barker as president of First National Bank of Birmingham.
• Miller Reese Hutchison patented the "Acousticon" electrical hearing aid.
• Crawford and Caroline Johnson moved to Birmingham.
• Artist Roderick MacKenzie was commissioned to execute an official depiction of the Edward VII's coronation in Delhi as Emperor of India.
• John Phillips became president of the National Council of Education.

Births

Walter Roland

• January 31: Tallulah Bankhead, actress
• February 5: Gordon Persons, Governor of Alabama
• February 14: Monnie Cheves, Samford University professor
• April 20: Bessie Estell, Birmingham City Council
• April 24: Ernest Ferrara, warehouse and repair station manager
• September 12: Clarence Allgood, judge
• December 20: Walter Roland, blues musician
• Morris Benson, community leader
• Richard Howard, Birmingham Museum of Art director
• Orville Schanbacher, Loveman's president

Graduations

• Bem Price from the University of Mississippi with an engineering degree.
• Charles Carraway graduated from Birmingham Medical College.

Marriages

• Banker William Berney to his second wife, the former Fiorella Robertson.
• Lumber executive Frank Lathrop to his third wife, the former Sally Comer.

Deaths

• August 28: John Flowers, Bessemer police officer (killed)

Works

Buildings

Birmingham Medical College

• May 2: Ground was broken for the new Hillman Hospital building.
• 2320 Arlington Avenue
• Avondale Marble Works building
• Avondale Odd Fellows Building
• Bibb County Courthouse
• Birmingham Ledger building
• Birmingham Medical College
• Birmingham Trust building (original)
• Booker City High School
• Excelsior Laundry Building, 1805–1807 2nd Avenue North
• Huston Biscuit Co. building on 28th Street South
• First Lutheran Church (second building)
• Robert Jemison, Sr residence, Glen Iris Park
• Lot 4 Hamilton's Additions
• Meadows Mill Bridge (original)
• Moody Annex
• Pell City courthouse
• Third Presbyterian Church (current building)
• Virginia Mines
• Woodward Building
• Zion Lutheran Church (second building), Avenue B and 19th Street South
• The first Alley School was built in Elyton.

Context

In 1902, the first college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, was held in Pasadena, California. The British won the Second Boer War, annexing the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. Electric Theatre, the first movie theater in the United States, opened in Los Angeles. Cuba gained independence from the United States. The Santa María volcano in Guatemala erupted. Lord Salisbury retired as British prime minister. Edward VII was crowned King of the United Kingdom.

Novels published in 1902 included The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle, Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, Brewster's Millions by George Barr McCutcheon, Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall by Charles Major, The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, and The Virginian by Owen Wister.

Popular music published in 1902 included "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home?" by Hughie Cannon, "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin, "The Glow Worm" by Paul Lincke & Heinz Bolten-Backers, "In The Good Old Summer Time" by George Evans & Ren Shields, and "Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar.

Notable births in 1902 included aviator Charles Lindbergh, photographer Ansel Adams, gangster Albert Anastasia, writer John Steinbeck, blues musician Son House, composer William Walton, film producer David O. Selznick, composer Meredith Willson, baseball player Earl Averill, baseball player Al Simmons, geneticist Barbara McClintock, composer Richard Rodgers, film director William Wyler, entertainer and politician George Murphy, gangster Meyer Lansky, philosopher Karl Popper, physicist Paul Dirac, actress Norma Shearer, poet Ogden Nash, mobster Carlo Gambino, stooge Larry Fine, McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, boxer Jack Sharkey, politician Strom Thurmond, and philosopher Mortimer J. Adler.

Notable deaths included author Samuel Butler, Swami Vivekananda, clothing designer Levi Strauss, activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, army physician Walter Reed, journalist and businessman Charles Dow, and cartoonist Thomas Nast.

1900s

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