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Grant Elected President
Republican Ulysses S. Grant defeats Democrat Horatio Seymour and is elected president of the United States. Grant receives 214 of 294 votes in the Electoral College. But his margin of victory in the popular vote is only 306,000 out of 5.7 million votes cast. The support of 500,000 recently enfranchised southern black voters accounts for Grant's victory. -
Rockefeller Incorporates Standard Oil
John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company is incorporated in Ohio. Rockefeller has been active in the oil business since 1863. Standard Oil was first formed as a partnership in 1868. -
Curtis Heads Civil Service Commission
President Ulysses S. Grant names George William Curtis to head the Civil Service Commission. Curtis, as editor of Harper's Weekly, has condemned political corruption and advocated imitation of the British system of awarding government positions on the basis of performance on a written test. The commission's recommendations will be disregarded and Curtis will resign in 1875. -
Carnegie Imitates Bessemer Steel
After visiting Henry Bessemer's steel plant in England, and noting the demand in Britain for steel rails, Andrew Carnegie returns to America intent on expanding his steel business. -
Crédit Mobilier Scandal
The New York Sun reports that Vice-President Schuyler Colfax, and several members of Congress, including future President James Garfield, received what amounted to free stock in return for protecting the Crédit Mobilier, a railroad construction company, from investigation for financial irregularities. -
Ulysses S. Grant Reelected
President Ulysses S. Grant is reelected to a second term as president of the United States, defeating Horace Greeley, the nominee of both the Democratic and Liberal Republican Parties. Grant receives 56% of the popular vote and 286 of 352 Electoral College votes. Greeley dies less than a month after the election. The National Labor Party candidate, Charles O'Connor, receives only 29,489 votes, ending the National Labor Union's experiment in direct political action. -
Mark Twain Publishes The Gilded Age
Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner publish The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, a satire of contemporary greed and corruption, coining the label for the period that is now commonly applied to the second half of the nineteenth century. -
Panic of 1873
The collapse of Jay Cooke and Company, a Philadelphia investment bank, triggers a nationwide financial panic that leads to a broader economic depression which lasts until 1879. -
Corruption in Grant Administration
A federal grand jury indicts 238 people—including President Ulysses S. Grant's personal secretary, General O.E. Babcock, and dozens of whiskey distillers and revenue officials—for conspiring to defraud the United States government of tax revenues. -
Alexander Graham Bell Invents Telephone
Inventor Alexander Graham Bell successfully transmits a human voice over a wire. The telephone will revolutionize personal and business communication.
