- April 9 – The National Farm School (later Delaware Valley College) is chartered in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
- May 18 – Plessy v. Ferguson: The U.S. Supreme Court introduces the "separate but equal" doctrine and upholds racial segregation.
- May 26 – Eleven years after its foundation, a group of 12 purely industrial stocks are chosen to form the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The index is composed entirely of industrial shares for the first time.[1]
- May 27 – 1896 St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado: The costliest and third deadliest tornado in U.S. history levels a mile wide swath of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, incurring over $10,000,000 in damages at contemporaneous prices,[2] killing more than 255 and injuring over 1,000 people.
- June 4 – The Ford Quadricycle, the first Ford vehicle ever developed, is completed, eventually leading Henry Ford to build the empire that "put America on wheels".
- June 28 – Twin Shaft Disaster: An explosion in the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston City, Pennsylvania results in a massive cave-in that kills 58 coal miners.[3][4][5]
- January 4 – Everett Dirksen, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1951 to 1969 (died 1969)
- January 8 – Arthur Ford, psychic, founded the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship (died 1971)
- January 14 – John Dos Passos, novelist (died 1970)
- January 18 – C. M. Eddy, Jr., author (died 1967)
- January 20 – George Burns, actor and singer (died 1996)
- January 21 – J. Carrol Naish, actor (died 1973)
- January 31
- February 7 – Bonner Fellers, United States Army general (died 1973)
- February 21 – Homa J. Porter, Texas businessman and political activist (died 1986)
- February 25 – John Little McClellan, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1943 to 1977 (died 1977)
- February 28 – Philip Showalter Hench, physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1950 (died 1965)
- February 29 – William A. Wellman, film director (died 1975)
- March 1 – Harry Winston, diamond dealer (died 1978)
- March 23 – Edwin Eugene Aldrin, aviator and army colonel (died 1974)
- April 8 – Yip Harburg, lyricist (died 1981)
- April 21 – Ralph Hungerford, 33rd Governor of American Samoa (died 1977)
- April 26 – Edward John Thye, 26th Governor of Minnesota from 1943 to 1947 and U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1947 to 1959 (died 1969)
- May 30 – Howard Hawks, film director (died 1977)
- June 7
- June 19 – Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Duchess of Windsor, socialite (died 1986 in France)
- June 28 – Constance Binney, American actress (died 1989)
- July 8 – James B. Wilson, American footballer (died 1986)
- July 9
- July 15 – Gladys Edgerly Bates, sculptor (died 2003)
- July 18
- July 19
- July 21
- July 28 – Barbara La Marr, born Reatha Dale Watson, silent film actress (died 1926)
- August 15 – Paul Outerbridge, photographer (died 1958)
- August 22 – W. E. Lawrence, actor (died 1947)
- August 26 – Besse Cooper, supercentenarian (died 2012)
- September 8 – Howard Dietz, lyricist (died 1983)
- September 10 – Adele Astaire, dancer and singer (died 1981)
- September 15 – Robert B. McClure, general (died 1973)
- September 21 – Walter Breuning, supercentenarian; last known surviving male born in 1896 (died 2011)
- September 24 – F. Scott Fitzgerald, author known for the novel The Great Gatsby (died 1940)
- September 29 – George H. Bender, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 1954 to 1957 (died 1961)
- October 22 – Earle C. Clements, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1950 to 1957 (died 1985)
- October 30 – Ruth Gordon, actress and screenwriter (died 1985)
- November 8 – Bucky Harris, baseball player (died 1977)
- November 14 – Mamie Eisenhower, née Doud, First Lady of the United States as wife of Dwight D. Eisenhower (died 1979)
- November 16 – Jim Jordan, actor (died 1988)
- November 25
- December 6 – Ira Gershwin, lyricist (died 1983)
- December 17 – Robert Francis Anthony Studds, admiral and engineer, fourth Director of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (died 1962)
- December 21 – Leroy Robertson, composer and educator (died 1971)
- Date unknown
- January 6 – Thomas W. Knox, author and journalist (born 1835)
- January 11 – George G. Wright, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1871 to 1877 (born 1820)
- January 15 – Mathew B. Brady, pioneering photographer (born 1822)
- January 19 – Bernhard Gillam, political cartoonist (born 1856)
- February 7 – William Hayden English, politician (born 1822)
- February 22 – George D. Robinson, lawyer and politician, 34th Governor of Massachusetts (born 1834)
- February 23 – George Davis, Confederate States Senator from North Carolina, 4th and last Confederate States Attorney General (born 1820)
- February 25 – Joseph P. Fyffe, admiral (born 1832)
- March 19 – R. Edward Earll, ichthyologist and museum curator (b. 1853)
- April 9 – Gustav Koerner, statesman (born 1809 in Frankfurt)
- April 19 – Arthur I. Boreman, U.S. Senator from West Virginia from 1869 to 1875 (born 1823)
- May 5 – Jacob Fjelde, sculptor (born 1855 in Norway)
- May 7 – Herman Webster Mudgett, alias H. H. Holmes, serial killer, executed (born 1861)
- May 11 – Henry Cuyler Bunner, novelist and poet (born 1855)
- May 13 – Nora Perry, poet, journalist and children's author (born 1831)
- May 31 – Homer V. M. Miller, U.S. Senator in Georgia from 1871 (born 1814)
- June 2 – Ozora P. Stearns, U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1871 (born 1831)
- June 4 – Austin Corbin, president of Long Island Rail Road (born 1827)
- June 12 – Thomas P. Leathers, steamboat captain (born 1816)
- June 13 – Alpheus Felch, 5th Governor of Michigan from 1846 till 1847 and U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1847 to 1853 (born 1804)
- June 25 – Lyman Trumbull, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1855 to 1873 (born 1813)
- July 1 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and author best known for the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (born 1811)
- July 14 – Luther Whiting Mason, music educator (born 1818)
- July 19 – Abraham H. Cannon, Mormon apostle (born 1859)
- July 22 – George Wallace Jones, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1848 till 1859 (born 1804)
- August 9 – Alonzo J. Edgerton, U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1881 (born 1827)
- August 14 – Olin Levi Warner, sculptor (born 1844)
- August 17 – Mary Abigail Dodge (Gail Hamilton), essayist (born 1833)
- October 13 – Thomas W. Ferry, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1871 till 1883 (born 1827)
- October 23 – Columbus Delano, statesman (born 1809)
- November 22 – George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., inventor of the Ferris wheel, typhoid (born 1859)
- Date unknown – Asahel C. Beckwith, U.S. Senator from Wyoming in 1893 (born 1827)
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