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Bessemer process
In 1855 Henry Bessemer was granted a patent for his method of processing steel from pig iron. He was able to develop it into a commercial success. -
Edwin Laurentine Drake
On August 27,1859 Edwin Laurentine Drake drove sections of pipe into the ground and found a deposit of oil 69 feet below the surface. -
Transcontinental Railroad
On July 1, 1862, the building of the railroad was authorized and granted rights of way to the Union Pacific to build westward from Omaha,Nebraska to the Central Pacific and to build eastward from Sacramento,California. The Tanscontinental railroad was completed in 1869, but was revealed that some railroad entrepreneurs had illegally profiteered from the acts. -
Crédit Mobilier Scandal
Crédit Mobilier Scandal, in U.S. history, illegal manipulation of contracts by a construction and finance company associated with the building of the Union Pacific Railroad (1865–69). -
Christopher Sholes
Sholes was granted a patent for a typewriter on June 23, 1868. The invention was inspired by another inventor to invent a letter- printing machine. -
Munn v. Illinois
Munn v. Illinois was a struggle for public regulation of private enterprises. Illinois legislature’s responded in 1871 to pressure from the National Grange, an association of farmers, by setting maximum rates that private companies could charge for the storage and transport of agricultural products. -
Alexander Graham Bell
He first produced intelligible speech on March 10, 1876, when he summoned his laboratory assistant, Thomas Watson, with words that Bell transcribed in his lab notes as “Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.” -
Thomas Edison
In October 1879 Edison introduced the modern age of light. Lightbulbs were powered by a thin thread of cotton. Edison kept searching for a stronger filament and found that carbonized bamboo worked better. In time, however, the modern filament of drawn tungsten wire was developed. -
John D. Rockefeller
His standards prospered and began to buy out its competitors until, by 1872. Also, he enabled the company to negotiate with railroads for favoured rates on its shipments of oil. It acquired pipelines and terminal facilities. By 1882 it had a near monopoly of the oil business in the United States. -
J.P. Morgan
In 1885 he began a long career in railroad organization which he arranged the merger of the New York Central Railroad with competing New York lines. Then in 1893 he helped to rehabilitate a number of major lines and stabilize the railroad industry by reducing competition. -
Haymarket Riot
A violent confrontation between labor protestors and police in Chicago, Illinois, on May 4, 1886. The riot symbolized as an international struggle for workers’ rights. -
Interstate Commerce Commission
Interstate Commerce Commission (1887–1996), was the first regulatory agency established in the United States, and allowed any commercial transactions or traffic to cross state boundaries.
It regulated the railroads and, later, motor carriers, inland waterways, and oil companies. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
First legislation enacted by the United States Congress (1890) to curb concentrations of power that interfere with trade and reduce economic competition. -
Homestead Strike
A violent labour dispute between the Carnegie Steel Company and many of its workers that occurred on July 6, 1892. -
Pullman strike
In protest, members of the American Railway Union began a local strike on May 11, 1894. It was a widespread railroad strike and boycott that severely disrupted rail traffic in the Midwest of the United States in June–July 1894. -
Mother Jones
Mother Jones was also an active supporter of legislation to prohibit child labor. She was one of the founders of the Social Democratic party in 1898 and of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905. By the 1880s Jones herself had become a highly visible figure in the American labor movement. -
Henry Ford
In 1903 Ford started the Ford Motor Company. Model T, one of the first cars built by Ford, was produced from 1908 to 1927. -
The Wright Brothers
On December 17, 1903, the Wight brothers built the first operational airplane with a gasoline engine and was powered by two propellers. Orville Wright made the first flight in the airplane and flew 120 feet in 12 seconds. Later that day, Wilbur Wright flew 852 feet in 59 seconds. -
Eugene Debs
Debs led a successful strike against the Great Northern Railway in 1894. In 1905, he helped find the Industrial Workers of the World. -
Lochner v. New York
U.S. Supreme Court handed down the decision of Lochner v. New York on April 17, 1905. A New York state law, set 10 hours of labour a day as the legal maximum in the baking trade.
