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Rockefeller incorporates standard oil
Rockefeller starts the biggest standard oil business ever -
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. The National Labor Party (formerly the National Labor Union) candidate, Charles O'Connor, receives only 29,489 votes, ending the National Labor Union's experiment in direct political action. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
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 19th century. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
Hayes Wins Disputed Presidency
The Electoral Commission established by Congress to investigate the presidential election of 1876—in which disputed returns from Louisiana, South Carolina, Oregon, and Florida have left the outcome undecided—declares that Rutherford B. Hayes is elected President of the United States.