Year 1824 Fun Facts, Trivia, and Historical Events

This quick read presents a collection of fun facts, trivia, and historical events from the year 1824. Discover the year’s top news stories, most influential people, historic firsts, famous birthdays, retail prices, and much more.

Take a journey through history in just minutes.

1. President of the United States: James Monroe (DR-Virginia)
2. Vice President: Daniel D. Tompkins (DR-New York)
3. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: John Marshall (Virginia)
4. Speaker of the House of Representatives: Henry Clay (DR-Kentucky)
5. In 1824, the 18th U.S. Congress was in session. Both chambers—the United States Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives—had a Democratic-Republican majority.
6. Unemployment rate: During the 1820s, no state or federal agencies compiled “accurate tallies” of America’s unemployment rate. Only “rough estimates” of the U.S. jobless rate were available.
7. Inflation rate: -7.62% ($1.00 in 1823 was equivalent in purchasing power to about 92 cents in 1824. Between 1823 and 1824, the dollar had an average “deflation rate” of -7.62%.)
8. Consumer price index (CPI): 9.700
9. American companies and brands established in 1824 included the Jersey Glass Company, Long Island Bank, Russell & Company, and the United States Fire Insurance Company of New York.
10. In 1824, there were 24 U.S. states. In order of admission to the Union, they were Delaware (1787), Pennsylvania (1787), New Jersey (1787), Georgia (1788), Connecticut (1788), Massachusetts (1788), Maryland (1788), South Carolina (1788), New Hampshire (1788), Virginia (1788), New York (1788), North Carolina (1789), Rhode Island (1790), Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796), Ohio (1803), Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), Alabama (1819), Maine (1820), and Missouri (1821).
11. On January 1, future U.S. President James Knox Polk married Sarah Childress.
12. On February 4, J. W. Goodrich introduced rubber galoshes (waterproof overshoes) to the marketplace.
13. On February 9, because of a family financial crisis, 12-year-old Charles Dickens, the future British novelist and social critic, began working in a blacking factory in London. (On February 23, his father, John Dickens, was committed to the Marshalsea prison in Southwark, London, as a debtor.)
14. On March 11, John C. Calhoun, the U.S. Secretary of War, created the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs without official congressional approval.
15. On March 11, Ferdinand Carré, a French engineer who was a pioneer in refrigeration, was born. In 1859, he received a patent for the ammonia-water absorption system.
16. In April, The United States Literary Gazette began publishing on a semi-monthly basis. It featured poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, and other lyricists.
17. On April 19, Lord Byron, a celebrated British poet and one of the key figures of the Romantic movement, died at age 36 in Missolonghi, Greece. He had contracted a severe fever “while aiding Greek revolutionaries in their independence war against the Ottoman Empire.” Lord Byron’s most famous works include Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Don Juan, She Walks in Beauty, The Corsair, and When We Two Parted.
18. On May 17, John Murray, a Scottish publisher, along with five of Lord Byron's friends and executors, destroyed Byron's Memoirs because of “scandalous details” in the manuscripts that might have damaged Byron's reputation. The two volumes were “dismembered and burnt in the fireplace” at John Murray's publishing office, located at 50 Albemarle Street in London. The burning of Lord Byron’s memoirs has been called “the greatest crime in literary history.”
19. On May 26, Congress passed an act “that reduced the size of the Arkansas Territory by moving its western boundary to a line 40 miles west of the southwest corner of Missouri. This action officially ceded a significant portion of the western Arkansas Territory to create a designated ‘Indian Country’ (later known as Indian Territory), primarily to accommodate the Choctaw Nation.”
20. On June 8, Noah Cushing received a Canadian patent for a washing machine, which was also the first Canadian patent ever issued.
21. On July 24, The Pennsylvanian, a newspaper in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, published the nation’s first “newspaper-run, public opinion ‘straw poll.’” The survey, centered around the upcoming U.S. presidential election, showed a preference for Andrew Jackson as U.S. president over John Quincy Adams, with Jackson earning 335 votes compared to Adams' 169.
22. On August 3, American inventor and entrepreneur Charles Goodyear married Clarissa Beecher.
23. On August 16, John Simpson Chisum, an American frontiersman, was born in Hardeman County, Tennessee. He later became a wealthy cattle baron in New Mexico and maintained the largest cattle herd in the United States between 1870 and 1881.
24. In September, John Neal, an American writer and editor, published the first installment of the five-part American Writers series, which was the first history of American literature.
25. On September 2, American naval officer David Farragut married Susan Caroline Marchant.
26. On October 21, Joseph Aspdin received a British patent for Portland cement.
27. Between October 26 and December 2, presidential elections were held in the United States, and Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, and William Crawford were the four “primary contenders” for the U.S. presidency.
28. On November 5, Stephen Van Rensselaer, an American landowner and businessman, founded the Rensselaer School, which later became the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute—“the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world.”
29. On November 16, the first “segments” of New York City’s iconic Fifth Avenue opened in Greenwich Village.
30. On December 1, the United States presidential election was turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives because no candidate—Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, or William Crawford—was able to secure a majority of the 261 electoral votes needed to win the U.S. presidency.
31. In 1824, Paolo B. Agnese founded the first commercial pasta factory in Imperia, Italy.
32. The British Royal Navy reduced its daily rum ration from ½ pint to ¼ pint, and tea became part of the daily ration.
33. Following the 1823 landmark UK Excise Act, entrepreneur George Smith established The Glenlivet Distillery, the first legal and licensed distillery in the Scottish Highlands.
34. Mary Randolph published The Virginia Housewife, one of America’s first housekeeping guides and cookbooks.
35. Key fiction works published during 1824 included Catharine Gore’s Theresa Marchment, or The Maid of Honour; James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea; Mary Russell Mitford’s Our Village; Susan Ferrier’s The Inheritance; and Thomas Moore’s Memoirs of Captain Rock.
36. A key nonfiction work published during the year was Louisa Gurney Hoare’s Friendly Advice on the Management and Education of Children, Addressed to Parents of the Middle and Labouring Classes of Society.
37. Top literary works for children published in 1824 included Agnes Strickland’s The Aviary; Or, An Agreeable Visit. Intended for Children, The Use of Sight: Or, I Wish I Were Julia, and The Little Tradesman, or, A Peep into English Industry.
38. Top dramatic works in 1824: John Howard Payne’s Charles the Second and Martin Archer Shee’s Alasco
39. Famous people born in 1824 included Alexandre Dumas Jr. (playwright), George MacDonald (novelist), James Meritt Ives (entrepreneur), Leland Stanford (entrepreneur), Thomas Stonewall Jackson (Civil War Confederate commander), and William Morris Hunt (cartoonist).
40. Notable people who died in 1824 included Anna Katharina Emmerick (Roman Catholic religious leader), Charles Pinckney (American founding father), James Parkinson (British doctor) Lord Byron (British poet), and Louis XVIII (king of France from 1814-24).
41. In 1824 as well, the words “acorn squash,” “bone china,” “boomerang,” “brewer’s yeast,” “day in and day out,” “fish cake,” “fish fry,” “fondue,” “freezer,” “houseplant,” “postmortem,” “second wind,” “sign language,” “smooth sailing,” “water heater,” and “wisdom tooth” all appeared in print for the first time.
42. One bushel of potatoes: 30 cents
43. One bushel of rye: 50 cents
44. One gallon of cider: 20 cents
45. One half bushel of white beans: 50 cents
46. One pair of shoes: $1.75
47. One pound of beeswax: 30 cents
48. One pound of butter: 12½ cents
49. One pound of honey: 12½ cents
50. One pound of lard: 10 cents
51. One pound of salt pork: 10 cents
52. One pound of veal: Five cents
53. One pound of wheat flour: Six cents
54. One ton of hay: $7.00
55. Wages for three days of general labor: $1.50
56. References:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1824_in_the_United_States
2. https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1824
3. https://www.famousbirthdays.com/year/1824.html
4. https://www.famousbirthdays.com/deceased/1824.html
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1824_in_literature
6. https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1824
7. https://www.history.com/a-year-in-history/1824
8. https://www.onthisday.com/weddings/date/1824
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_date_of_admission_to_the_Union
10. https://www.foodreference.com/html/html/food-timeline-1820.html

Disclaimer: In writing and editing this article, Gregory DeVictor has made every effort to ensure historical accuracy and not to mislead his audience. In addition, the contents of this article, including text, graphics, and captions, are for general informational purposes only.

© 2026 Gregory DeVictor