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Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. -
Bessemer Process
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. The process is named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1855. The process was independently discovered in 1851 by William Kelly. -
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. -
John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He was a co-founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. -
Christopher Sholes
Christopher Latham Sholes was an American inventor who invented the first practical typewriter and the QWERTY keyboard still in use today. He was also a newspaper publisher and Wisconsin politician. -
Transcontinental Railroad Completed
A transcontinental railroad is a contiguous network of railroad trackage[1] that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. -
Wright Brothers
The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were two American brothers, inventors, and aviation pioneers who are credited[1][2][3] with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903. From 1905 to 1907, the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. Although not the fir -
Credit Mobile Scandal
The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872-1873 damaged the careers of several Gilded Age politicians. Major stockholders in the Union Pacific Railroad formed a company, the Crédit Mobilier of America, and gave it contracts to build the railroad. They sold or gave shares in this construction to influential congressmen. -
Munn v. Illinois
Munn v. Illinois, case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1876. Munn, a partner in a Chicago warehouse firm, had been found guilty by an Illinois court of violating the state laws providing for the fixing of maximum charges for storage of grain. -
Edwin Drake
In April 1859, Drake's contract with Townsend expired. From his own pocket, Townsend sent $500, but the other directors of his Seneca Oil Company refused to provide more capital, after having invested $2000 (nearly $40,000 in 2002 dollars) and seen no results. At last Drake found a reliable driller -- William A. "Uncle Billy" Smith, a blacksmith who forged his own tools and reported for work in late May. They built a derrick of pine wood and began drilling. -
Haymarket Riot
The May 4, 1886, rally at Haymarket Square was organized by labor radicals to protest the killing and wounding of several workers by the Chicago police during a strike the day before at the McCormick Reaper Works. -
Interstate Commerce Act
The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 is a United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices.[1] The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates. It also required that railroads publicize shipping rates and prohibited short haul or long haul fare discrimination, a form of price discrimination against smaller markets, particularly farmers. The Act created a fe -
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act (Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7) is a landmark federal statute in the history of United States antitrust law (or "competition law") passed by Congress in 1890. -
Homestead Strike
One of the most difficult episodes Andrew Carnegie's life -- and one that revealed the steel magnate's conflicting beliefs regarding the rights of labor -- was the bitter conflict in 1892 at his steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Carnegie's involvement in the union-breaking action left many men dead or wounded and forever tarnished Carnegie's reputation as a benevolent employer and a champion of labor. -
Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States in the summer of 1894. It pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. -
Lochner v. NY Decision
n Lochner v. New York (1905), the Supreme Court ruled that a New York law setting maximum working hours for bakers was unconstitutional. The Court held that the Constitution prohibits states from interfering with most employment contracts because the right to buy and sell labor is a fundamental freedom protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Eugene Debs
Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World, and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States. -
Mother Jones
Mother Jones is a left-leaning American magazine featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery serve as co-editors. -
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent Scottish-born scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.
