-
Period: to
1. Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment guarantees women the right to vote, the culmination of a national movement that began in 1848.
-
Period: to
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
African-American journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett writes passionately against lynching and founds anti-lynching societies and grassroots efforts to end racial discrimination in major cities. -
Period: to
America Becoming a World Power
-
Marjorie Stoneman Douglas born
She was born in Minneapolis, Minn. As a writer for the Miami Herald, she will lead the crusade to save the Florida Everglades beginning in the 1920s. She wrote The Everglades: River of Grass, published in 1947, the same year President Harry F. Truman establishes Everglades National Park. She was also honored by President Bill Clinton in 1993. -
The Sherman Antitrust Act
Declares illegal "every contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce." A vague and weak law, but a first effort at restraining the power of monopolies and trusts. -
Ghost Dance Movement: Wounded Knee Marks End of Indian Resistance
500 U.S. troops massacre 350 Sioux men, women, and children in South Dakota in the last major confrontation between the U.S. Army and the Plains Indians. -
Sequoia National Park established
-
Yosemite National Park and Grant National Parks authorized by Congress
-
Yosemite National Park
...is established, the second national park after Yellowstone (1872). -
Period: to
Aprroximately 4 million immigrants enter U.S.
-
Period: to
5-month strike at Andrew Carnegie's Homestead
Steelworkers striking at Andrew Carnegie's Homestead, Pennsylvania steel mill clash with private Pinkerton guards, with casualties on both sides. The 5-month strike ends with the firing of union leaders and workers returning to their 12-hour shifts. -
Creation of Peoples Party (the Populists)
...by the Farmers' Alliance, the Knights of Labor, the National Colored Farmers' Alliance, and others. The Omaha Platform articulates the goals of this protest movement. -
Anti-Saloon League founded
-
Stock market panic
Stock market panic precipitates most severe economic depression of the 19th century, which lasts until 1896. -
Coxey's Army marches
Coxey's Army of unemployed workers from Ohio marches on Washington, DC, to protest the lack of work and call for public assistance. -
National railroad strike
National railroad strike inspired by workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company protesting 25% wage cuts, and led by Eugene V. Debs' American Railway Union, is broken only by federal troops called out by President Grover Cleveland; seven strikers are killed. -
Plessy vs. Ferguson Case
In Plessy vs. Ferguson, the Supreme Court upholds segregation. -
Coney Island Opens!
-
Booker T. Washington speech
Booker T. Washington, the educator and founder of Tuskegee Institute, is launched into national prominence as an African American leader with his 9/18 speech at the Atlanta Exposition, in which he proposes that black civil rights and social equality are not as important as the economic advancement of African Americans in the South. -
Period: to
Spanish-American War
-
The National Consumers' League was created
-
Period: to
8.8 million immigrants enter the U.S.
-
Period: to
5-month-long strike by 145,000 anthracite coal miners
A 5-month-long strike by 145,000 anthracite coal miners causes the price of coal to skyrocket and forces the closing of schools around the country, prompting President Theodore Roosevelt to intercede. Workers gain pay raises, but the union fails to gain recognition from mine owners. -
"The Shame of the Cities"
Muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens' magazine series "The Shame of the Cities" reveals widespread urban political corruption. -
Standard Oil Company expose
Journalist Ida Tarbell publishes her expose of the Standard Oil Company. -
President Theodore Roosevelt creates the U.S. Forest Service
-
Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle
Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle, leading to the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. -
NAACP Founded
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded by liberal whites and African Americans to promote racial justice and civil rights. The director of publications is W. E. B. Du Bois, African American scholar. -
Eugenics Record Office opened
Charles B. Davenport opens the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., which serves as a national resource for local eugenics organizations. -
Period: to
5.7 million immigrants enter the U.S.
-
Frederick W. Taylor publishes The Principles of Scientific Management
...expounding the virtues of centralized factory planning, systematic analysis of jobs, detailed supervision of workers, and accompanying wage incentives. -
Triangle Shirtwaist fire
-
Society of American Indians is founded
Society of American Indians is founded by Dr. Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa, a former student at Dartmouth College) and others, the first Indian rights organization created by and for Indians. -
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) has 250,000 members
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) has 250,000 members, the largest women's organization in U.S. history to date. -
U.S. Children's Bureau established.
-
Woodrow Wilson elected president
Democrat Woodrow Wilson elected president over Republican William Howard Taft, Progressive Theodore Roosevelt, and Socialist Eugene V. Debs. -
Passage of the Graduated Income Tax
...the first income tax in U.S. history. -
The Federal Reserve Act
...brings order and federal oversight to the nation's banking system. -
Period: to
1. Nearly half a million African Americans leave the rural South and settle in the North.
-
The Woman Rebel Published
Feminist Margaret Sanger publishes The Woman Rebel, a magazine about contraception, which coins the term "birth control." To escape prosecution for distributing information about the use of contraceptive measures, she flees to England. The American Birth Control League is founded in 1921 and later becomes Planned Parenthood. -
State militia and striking coal miners seeking recognition for the United Mine Workers clash
State militia and striking coal miners seeking recognition for the United Mine Workers clash at a Colorado mine owned by John D. Rockefeller. Twenty-one persons die in the Ludlow Massacre, including women and children who are burned to death when soldiers set fire to tents; strike lasts a month before federal troops restore order. -
World War One breaks out in Europe.
-
The Clayton Anti-Trust Act
The Clayton Anti-Trust Act strengthens regulation of business and exempts labor unions from being considered illegal "in restraint of trade." -
Federal Trade Commission created
...further extending federal government regulation of the economy. -
Establishment of the National Park Service.
-
U.S. enters World War One.
The Espionage Act allows the federal government to suppress antiwar sentiment; the Sedition Act of 1918 outlaws dissenting speech. -
Millions of workers strike
Millions of workers strike. A year of major domestic unrest sees strikes ranging from Boston policemen to steelworkers and coal miners, over issues of shorter hours, higher wages, and union recognition. More than 4 million workers are off the job at some point because of strikes or lock-outs. -
Race riots in many U.S. cities.
Twenty-six race riots occur in U.S., some involving soldiers returning from the war. Major riots in Chicago and Washington, DC leave scores dead. -
Red Scare
In the Red Scare through early 1920, thousands of radicals are arrested and nearly 900 deported, all on scant evidence of "revolutionary activity." -
Ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution
...outlawing the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, ushers in the era of Prohibition. Prohibition is repealed in 1933 by the Twenty-First Amendment. -
Period: to
The census reveals rural-to-urban shift: For the first time, more than half of Americans live in towns and cities with a population greater than 2,500.