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Battle of the Little Big Horn
In June 1876, a colonel named George Custer rushed ahead of the other columns of the U.S. calvary and arrived a day ahead of the main force. Near the Little Bighorn River, in present-day Montana, Custer and his force of about 250 men unexpectantly came upon a group of at least 2,000 Indians. Crazy Horse led the charge at what became known as the Battle of the Little Big Horn, killing Custer and all of his men. -
El Paso Salt War
For many generations, Mexicans had minded salt from the salt beds of the El Paso valley. Mexicans viewed these areas as public property, open to all. However, when Americans arrived in the 1870s, they laid claim to the salt beds and aimed to sell the salt for profit. In 1877, in what became known as the El Paso Salt War, Americans and Mexicans clashed over access to this crucial commodity. When the battles ended, the salt beds were no longer communal property. Now, users would have to buy it. -
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was the country's first major rail strike and witnessed the first general strike in the nation's history. The strikes and the violence it spawned briefly paralyzed the country's commerce and led governors in ten states to mobilize 60,000 militia members to reopen rail traffic. The strike would be broken within a few weeks, but it helped set the stage for later violence in the 1880s and 1890s. -
The Bland-Allison Act
This act specified that the U.S. Treasury make a certain amount of silver-backed dollars each month, but not as many as the Free Silver advocates would have liked. The debate over whether to consider silver as money alongside gold continued until the passage of the Gold Standard Act in 1900. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was an immigration law passed in 1882 that prevented Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first immigration law that excluded an entire ethnic group. It also excluded Chinese nationals from eligibility for United States citizenship. -
Pendleton Civil Service Act
This act established a Civil Service Commission, which wrote a civil service exam. individuals who wanted to work for the government had to take the exam, and getting a job depended on doing well on the exam, not on manipulating one's political connections. initially, the act covered only a small percentage of federal employees, but its reach grew over time, reducing the power of the spoils system. -
Dawes General Allotment Act
One way reformers thought assimilation and Americanization could be accomplished was with the passage of the Dawes General Allotment Act (sometimes called the Dawes Severalty Act) by Congress in 1887, which encouraged Indians to become private property owners and farmers, The Dawes Act ended the reservations' tribal landholding system. Each Indian was allotted 160-acres of the tribe's reservation to own as farmland. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
Sherman Antitrust Act, first legislation enacted by the U.S. Congress to curb concentrations of power that interfere with trade and reduce economic competition. The act’s main provision outlaws all combinations that restrain trade between states or with foreign nations. This prohibition applies to formal cartels and any agreement to fix prices, limit industrial output, share markets, or exclude competition. It also all attempts to monopolize any part of trade or commerce in the United States. -
Formation of the Populist Party
The spread of the Farmers' Alliances culminated with the formation of the Populist Party, or People's Party in 1892. These Populists sought to build a new political party from the grass roots up. They ran entire slates of candidates for local, state, and national positions. Like a prairie fire, the Populist Party spread rapidly, putting pressure on the two major political parties to consider their demands. -
The Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike took place from May 11, 1894-July 20, 1894. The widespread railroad strike and boycott severely disrupted rail traffic in the Midwest of the United States. The federal government's response to the unrest marked the first time that an injunction was used to break a strike. -
The Election of 1896
The presidential campaign of 1896 was one of the most exciting in American history. The central issue was the country’s money supply. An economic depression had begun in 1893, and public opinion was split between those who favored the gold standard and those who favored free silver, a type of currency inflation, to help alleviate the depression. American presidential election held on November 3, 1896, in which Republican William McKinley defeated Democrat-Populist William Jennings Bryan. -
The Gold Standard Act
The Gold Standard Act was signed into law by President William McKinley on 14 March 1900. The Gold Standard Act of 1900 established gold as the only standard for redeeming paper money. It stopped silver being exchanged for gold in the United States monetary system. The “Gold Standard Act” of 1900 established gold as the official official means of payment and as the sole basis for redeeming paper currency.
