1904

Portrait of Lady Helen Vincent, Viscountess d'Abernon

1904 was the 33rd year after the founding of the city of Birmingham.

Events

• January 28: A rare snowfall brought 8.1 inches to Birmingham.
• March 27: Bethel Baptist Church was organized in Collegeville.
• April 25: Russell Cunningham was sworn in as acting Governor of Alabama while William Jelks was hospitalized out of state.
• April 30-December 1: Giuseppe Moretti's statue of Vulcan represented the mineral wealth of the Birmingham District at the Palace of Mines and Metallurgy at St Louis, Missouri's Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
• June 3: Industrial High School graduated its first senior class.
• July 23: The Whitman Sisters' New Orleans Troubadours performed at the Jefferson Theatre.
• The first barber shop opened in the space still in use as the Hippodrome barber shop in Woodlawn.
• The Woodlawn Library was established by the Women's Club of Woodlawn at Woodlawn City Hall.
• St Andrew's Episcopal Mission purchased a lot at 11th Avenue South and Center Street for a new church building.
• St Mark's Catholic Church was founded in Republic.
• Birmingham City Physician Charles Whelan, Jr enforced a new city ordinance requiring smallpox vaccination.

Business

• The architecture firm of Breeding & Whilldin was founded and commissioned to design a new Birmingham High School.
• The Birmingham Mineral Railroad was subsumed into the Louisville & Nashville Railroad system.
• The law firm of Walker, Tillman, Campbell & Morrow became Tillman, Grubb, Bradley & Morrow
• Jesse Motlow and Spoon Motlow founded the Motlow Brothers Distilling Company in Birmingham.
• The Birmingham Baptist College was founded by William Pettiford and Charles Boothe.
• December: The Pratt Consolidated Coal Company was incorporated in Delaware.

Athletics

• C. I. Taylor organized the Birmingham Giants baseball team.
• Mike Donahue became the head coach for the Auburn Tigers football team.
• Auburn won the Iron Bowl 29-5 at West End Park.

Works

• Vulcan by Giuseppi Moretti
• William Elias B. Davis statue, also by Moretti
• Portrait of Lady Helen Vincent by John Singer Sargent
• Improved automatic railroad car-coupling, U.S. Patent No. 761,056 by Andrew Beard

Buildings

Country Club of Birmingham clubhouse

• 11th Avenue United Methodist Church
• Alabama A&M University library
• Buck Creek Mill mill building
• Clarkson Bridge in Cullman County
• Country Club of Birmingham clubhouse at Lakeview Park
• Ensley Works additional blast furnace and bessemer converter
• Richard Massey residence
• Thomas Rowan residence additions

Individuals

• Laura Burton received her medical license and opened a practice in the Watts Building.
• B. B. Comer was elected to the Alabama Railroad Commission.
• James Coyle became pastor of St Paul's Cathedral.
• W. W. Dorman succeeded E. B. Norton as pastor of East Lake United Methodist Church.
• Culpepper Exum was elected president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.
• William Gussen was elected first president of the Alabama Music Teachers Association.
• A. O. Lane completed his third term as president of the Birmingham Board of Education.
• Adolph Loveman succeeded Simon Klotz as president of Temple Emanu-El.
• Lloyd Noland was appointed to assist William Gorgas to control disease in the Panama Canal zone.
• A. H. Parker became principal of Industrial High School.
• J. C. Persinger succeeded W. T. Andrews as pastor of Avondale United Methodist Church.
• Rev. Yasgour served as rabbi of Knesseth Israel Congregation.

Births

• January 14: Robert Chambliss, terrorist
• January 22: John Beecher, activist poet
• June 11: Pinetop Smith, boogie-woogie pianist
• September 1: Johnny Mack Brown, football player and actor
• September 25: Arthur Shores, attorney and Birmingham City Council member
• October 20: James Head, business owner and civic leader
• November 13: Albert Boutwell, 22nd Mayor of Birmingham
• December 20: Spud Davis, baseball player
• Richard Coe, artist
• Alice Johnson, daughter of Crawford Johnson
• Buster Waits, bookkeeper and baseball mascot
• Jennie Wood, socialite and murder victim
• Osburn Zuber, Birmingham News columnist

Marriages

• November 4: Bem Price married Lutie Bragg.
• Rick Woodward married Annie Jemison.

Deaths

• January 24: Mitchell Porter, attorney
• July 10: William Walker, Jr, attorney
• Jesse Pearson

Context

1904 was a leap year. A January fire destroyed 1,500 buildings in Baltimore, Maryland. The Russo-Japanese War broke out in February. Longacre Square in New York City became Times Square in April. Cy Young threw the modern game's first perfect game in May, the same month that FIFA was established. St Louis, Missouri hosted the Games of the 3rd Olympiad. Teddy Roosevelt defeated Alton Parker to serve a first full term as President.

Notable 1904 births include those of actors Ray Bolger, Peter Lorre and Cary Grant; choreographer George Balanchine; gangster Pretty Boy Floyd; musicians Count Basie, Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Fats Waller; authors Theodore Seuss Geisel and Joseph Campbell; artists Salvador Dalí and Willem de Kooning, physicist Robert Oppenheimer; and Chinese leader Deng Xiaopeng.

Deaths in 1904 included those of Queen Isabella II of Spain; composer Antonín Dvořák; photographer Eadweard Muybridge; authors Anton Chekhov, Kate Chopin and Lafcadio Hearn; and sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi.

Ivan Pavlov won the 1904 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Puccini's Madame Butterfly debuted in Milan and Mahler's Symphony No. 5 premiered in Cologne. The New York Giants won the National League pennant, but declined to participate in a second-ever World Series against the Boston Americans.

1900s

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