Celebrations Today – June 2
Holidays and observances
- Children’s Day (North Korea)
- Christian feast day:
- Civil Aviation Day (Azerbaijan)
- Coronation of King Jigme Singye Wangchuck (Bhutan)
- Social Forestry Day (Bhutan)
- Day of Hristo Botev (Bulgaria)
- Decoration Day (Canada)
- Festa della Repubblica (Italy)
- International Sex Workers Day
Celebrations Today – USA: June 2
National Rotisserie Chicken Day
National Bubba Day
National Rocky Road Day
National Leave The Office Early Day -unless June 2nd falls on a weekend, at which time it would be acknowledged on the closest working day
National Doughnut Day – First Friday in June
American Indian Citizenship Day
National I Love My Dentist Day
National Gun Violence Awareness Day
National Rotisserie Chicken Day
National Yell ‘Fudge’ at the Cobras in North America Day
Today in US History: June 2
Indian Citizenship Act
Descendants of the Original Inhabitants of Dakota Territory (detail),
Job V. Harrison, photographer,
circa 1900.
The Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920
Just why the Indians shouldn’t vote is something I can’t understand.”The Life of Henry Mitchell,”
Old Town, Maine,
Robert Grady, interviewer,
circa 1938-1939.
American Life Histories, 1936-1940
On June 2, 1924, Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. The right to vote, however, was governed by state law; until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting. In a WPA interview from the 1930s, Henry Mitchell describes the attitude toward Native Americans in Maine, one of the last states to comply with the Indian Citizenship Act:
One of the Indians went over to Old Town once to see some official in the city hall about voting. I don’t know just what position that official had over there, but he said to the Indian, ‘We don’t want you people over here. You have your own elections over on the island, and if you want to vote, go over there.'”The Life of Henry Mitchell,”
Old Town, Maine,
Robert Grady, interviewer,
circa 1938-1939.
American Life Histories, 1936-1940
Native Americans During Mathematics Class, (detail)
Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania,
Frances Benjamin Johnston, photographer, 1903.
Prints & Photographs Online Catalog
Previously, the Dawes Severalty Act (1887) had shaped U.S. policy towards Native Americans. In accordance with its terms, and hoping to turn Indians into farmers, the federal government redistributed tribal lands to heads of families in 160-acre allotments. Unclaimed or “surplus” land was sold, and the proceeds used to establish Indian schools where Native-American children learned reading, writing, and the domestic and social systems of white America. By 1932, the sale of both unclaimed land and allotted acreage resulted in the loss of two-thirds of the 138 million acres that Native Americans had held prior to the Dawes Act.
In addition to the extension of voting rights to Native Americans, the Secretary of the Interior commission created the Meriam Commission to assess the impact of the Dawes Act. Completed in 1928, the Meriam Report described how government policy oppressed Native Americans and destroyed their culture and society.
The poverty and exploitation resulting from the paternalistic Dawes Act spurred passage of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. This legislation promoted Native-American autonomy by prohibiting allotment of tribal lands, returning some surplus land, and urging tribes to engage in active self-government. Rather than imposing the legislation on Native Americans, individual tribes were allowed to accept or reject the Indian Reorganization Act. From 1934 to 1953, the U.S. government invested in the development of infrastructure, health care, and education, and the quality of life on Indian lands improved. With the aid of federal courts and the government, over two million acres of land were returned to various tribes.
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
Salish Man Named Paul Challae and Small Child,
Montana,
date unknown.
Salish Man and Woman Sitting on Rocks,
Montana [?],
date unknown.
Salish Woman and Children,
St. Ignatius Mission, Montana.
1924.
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest integrates over 2,300 photographs and 7,700 pages of text relating to Native Americans of two cultural areas of the Pacific Northwest. Many aspects of life and work — including housing, clothing, crafts, transportation, education, and employment, are illustrated in this collection drawn from the extensive holdings of the University of Washington Libraries, the Cheney Cowles Museum/Eastern Washington State Historical Society, and the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.
- Listen to Native American music. Omaha Indian Music features traditional Omaha music from the 1890s and 1980s. The multiformat ethnographic field collection contains 44 wax cylinder recordings collected by Francis La Flesche and Alice Cunningham Fletcher between 1895 and 1897, 323 songs and speeches from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and speeches from the 1985 Hethu’shka Society concert at the Library of Congress. Search by keyword or browse the list of recorded music.
- View photographs documenting Native American life in the 1930s and 1940s. Search the collection, America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945 on reservation or Indian.
- George Washington Papers, 1741-1799 includes many references to Indian treaties and rights; to explore this aspect of Washington’s correspondence, search the collection on Indian rights and Indian treaties.
- Words and Deeds in American History contains three features highlighting aspects of Native American history in the Northern and Central U.S.
- Search the Today in History archive on Native American to read additional features including pages on Jim Thorpe, the Cherokee chief John Ross, the Paiute writer and translator Sarah Winnemucca, and the Wounded Knee Massacre.
- Photographs from the Chicago Daily News includes images of Native Americans.
- Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian: Photographic Images collection portrays the traditional customs and lifeways of eighty Indian tribes.
- The History of the American West, 1860-1920: Photographs from the Collection of the Denver Public Library includes images of Native Americans from more than forty tribes living west of the Mississippi River.
Grover Cleveland Marries Frances Folsom
The President’s Wedding (detail),
T. de Thulstrup, artist,
1886.
Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present
President Grover Cleveland wed Frances Folsom in a White House ceremony on June 2, 1886. Daughter of Cleveland’s late law partner, the bride was twenty-seven years younger than her husband.
The self-educated Cleveland came from a poor family. After reading law and clerking at a Buffalo, New York law firm, he was admitted to the bar in 1859. A Democrat, he entered Buffalo’s political arena in 1862 and was elected mayor in 1881 and governor of New York State in 1882. As governor, his opposition to patronage raised his national standing, even as it rankled New York City’s Democratic machine.
Cleveland brought his belief in clean government to the White House in 1885. The first Democrat to hold the office after the Civil War, Cleveland’s term was marked by significant efforts toward civil service reform. While he won the popular vote in his bid for a second term as president, he failed to secure the majority of votes in the Electoral College and Benjamin Harrison won the 1888 election. Cleveland returned to New York and the practice of law.
Grover Cleveland,
1888.
Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present
Cleveland did not abandon politics, however, and he was renominated for another presidential bid in 1892, this time winning over Harrison. Cleveland became the only U.S. chief executive to serve two nonconsecutive terms. His second administration was plagued by economic instability and social unrest. Within months after Cleveland regained the presidency, the nation suffered the worst economic downturn in its history. Believing the Sherman Silver Purchasing Act largely responsible for economic woes, Cleveland called Congress into session and lobbied successfully to repeal the act.
Unfortunately for Cleveland, economic depression persisted. The violent Pullman Strike in Chicago, the rise of a third political party (The People’s Party or Populist Party) and the Free Silver Movement all signaled growing dissatisfaction with the status quo. In 1896, Cleveland lost the Democratic nomination to William Jennings Bryan. Cleveland retired to Princeton, New Jersey. He was elected a trustee of Princeton University in 1901; he lectured there and had an active role in the university community until his death in 1908.
Search the following American Memory Collections for more information about the life and times of man who served as both the twenty-second and twenty-fourth president:
- Learn a Grover Cleveland song! Search the collection Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 on the keyword Grover Cleveland to locate ten songs written for and about the president including “Here’s a Health to Grover Cleveland.”
- Listen to an anti-Cleveland Campaign Song. Search the collection California Gold: Folk Music from the Thirties on Grover Cleveland.
- Read a letter from Cleveland to Booker T. Washington contained in African American Perspectives, 1818-1907. Using the keywords Grover Cleveland or Booker T. Washington to search that collection will reveal other items of interest as well.
- Locate personal anecdotes about Grover Cleveland. Search the collection American Life Histories, 1936-1940 on Grover Cleveland. These personal recollections include references to Cleveland’s campaign and his honeymoon trip.
- Search on Grover Cleveland in An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera for broadsides and leaflets relating to the president.
- Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America contains ten photographs of Grover Cleveland’s birthplace in Caldwell, New Jersey.
- Learn more about the Chautauqua movement, which William Jennings Bryan deemed a “potent human factor in molding the mind of the nation.” Search on a keyword such as art, science, or politics in Traveling Culture to see a wide variety of items related to events on the Chautauqua circuit, which was founded about a decade before Cleveland was elected to the presidency.
Today in History – June 2-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