Celebrations Today – November 4

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day:
  • Blessed Teresa Manganiello
  • Charles Borromeo (Roman Catholic Church)
  • Emeric of Hungary
  • Our Lady of Kazan (Russian Orthodox Church)
  • Vitalis and Agricola
  • November 4 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
• Community Service Day (Dominica)
• Flag Day (Panama)
• National Tonga Day (Tonga)
• National Unity and Armed Forces Day or Giorno dell’Unità Nazionale e Festa delle Forze Armate (Italy)
• Unity Day (Russia)
• Yitzhak Rabin Memorial (unofficial, but widely commemorated)

Celebrations Today – USA: November 4

National Jersey Friday
National Chicken Lady Day
National Candy Day
National Bison Day – First Saturday in November
National King Tut Day
National Skeptics Day
National Waiting for the Barbarians Day
National Use Your Common Sense Day

Today in US History: November 4

Election Day

On November 4, 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland defeated Republican James G. Blaine ending a particularly acrimonious campaign. The outcome of the presidential race was determined by the electoral vote of New York, which Cleveland won with a plurality of just 1,047 votes. Former Senator and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz was among those reform-minded Republicans who crossed party lines—swing votes can make the difference on election day—to support Cleveland, the first Democrat to occupy the White House after the Civil War.

President Grover Cleveland, half-length portrait, facing right,
1888.
By Popular Demand: Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present

In an effort to address the problem of voter fraud in presidential elections, Congress passed legislation in 1845 requiring the simultaneous selection of presidential electors in each state. Prior to the enactment of this law, states selected presidential electors on different dates. The new law stipulated that presidential electors be selected on the “Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November of the year in which they are to be appointed.” The 1848 election was the first presidential election in which Americans in every state voted on the same day.

In 1872, legislation was passed that moved election day for the House of Representatives to the same Tuesday in November. The act was amended to include Senate elections after the Seventeenth Amendment was enacted.

Dwight D. Eisenhower,
c1952.
By Popular Demand: Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present

Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president on November 4, 1952. A popular World War II general who ran on the slogan “I Like Ike,” Eisenhower easily defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson.

As early as the 1930s, Americans were already yearning for the excitement of election days past. “Politics played a big part in the life of this town years ago,” Thomaston, Connecticut, First Selectman E. R. Kaiser observed in 1938:

Campaigns were hot, and there was always a big celebration afterwards. Used to have torchlight parades, and the whole town would turn out, either to watch ’em or to march…Each man wore a blue cape and carried a lantern on his shoulder. There were two bands in town, those days, Grilley’s band and the Clock Shop band, and they’d both turn out.
[E. R. Kaiser],
December 15, 1938.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940

Election Day!,
c1909.
By Popular Demand: “Votes for Women” Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920

Three Suffragists Casting Votes in New York City(?),
ca. 1917.
By Popular Demand: “Votes for Women” Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920

The timeline One Hundred Years Toward Suffrage provides an overview of the women’s suffrage movement. Learn more about this movement by visiting Votes for Women: Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921, a collection consisting of 167 books, pamphlets, and other artifacts documenting the suffrage campaign.

Find more information about the history of elections and voting:

• Search American Memory collections related to women’s history to find more information concerning the women’s suffrage movement.
• Search on election in American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940 to find more reminiscences of election day such as Charlie Stearn’s recounting of the defeat of an unpopular town clerk in “Small Town Election.”
• Search the collection African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907 on vote to find documents pertaining to the right to vote.
• Search on election in America from the Great Depression to World War II: Black-and-White Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945 to find hundreds of photographs concerning elections and voting.
• Select the presentation Elections from the Features section of the Learning Page for an overview of the history of American elections and additional resources on the subject.
• The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution granted African-American men the right to vote. See the entry for the Fifteenth Amendment in the Library’s Primary Documents in American History Web guide.

Today in History – November 4-External Links

Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia