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Progress: Andrew Carnegie
One of the captains of industry of 19th century America, Andrew Carnegie helped build the formidable American steel industry, a process that turned a poor young man into one of the richest entrepreneurs of his age. Later in his life, Carnegie sold his steel business and systematically gave his collected fortune away to cultural, educational and scientific institutions for "the improvement of mankind." -
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Progress: J.P. Morgan
One of the most powerful bankers of his era, J.P. (John Pierpont) Morgan, financed railroads and helped organize U.S. Steel, General Electric and other major corporations. He followed his wealthy father into the banking business in the late 1850s, and in 1871 formed a partnership. In 1895, their firm was reorganized as J.P. Morgan & Company. Morgan used his influence to help stabilize American financial markets during several economic crises, including the panic of 1907. -
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Progress: John D Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller, founder of the Standard Oil Company, became one of the world’s wealthiest men and a major philanthropist. He entered the then-fledgling oil business in 1863 by investing in a Cleveland, Ohio, refinery. In 1870, he established Standard Oil, which by the early 1880s controlled some 90 percent of U.S. refineries and pipelines. During his life Rockefeller donated more than $500 million to various philanthropic causes. -
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The American Dream: Women's Suffrage
Women's suffrage in the United States, was established over the course of several decades, first in various states and localities and then nationally in 1920. The demand for women's suffrage began to gather strength in the 1840s. This fight continued fiercely until August 1920, when the 19th Amendment was added to the Constitution that states "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." -
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The American Dream: Fredrick Jackson Turner
Frederick Jackson Turner was an American historian in the early 20th century. He trained many PhDs who came to occupy prominent places in the history profession. He promoted interdisciplinary and quantitative methods. He argued that the moving western frontier shaped American democracy and the American character. He is also known for his theories of geographical sectionalism. His "Frontier Thesis" had an enormous impact on the American mind and historical scholarship. -
The American Dream: The Homestead Act
Signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862, the Homestead Act encouraged Western migration by providing settlers 160 acres of public land. In exchange, homesteaders paid a small filing fee and were required to complete five years of continuous residence before receiving ownership of the land. This fulfilled the American Dream of owning land and self-managing. -
Movement: The Transcontinental Railroad
In 1862, the Pacific Railroad Act chartered the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies, and tasked them with building a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west. Over the next seven years, the two companies would race toward each other from Sacramento, California on the one side and Omaha, Nebraska on the other, struggling against great risks before they met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869. -
The American Dream: Morill Land Grant Act
The Morrill Act of 1862 was a major boost to higher education in America. It was originally set up to establish institutions is each state that would educate people in agriculture, home economics, mechanical arts, and other professions that were practical at the time. It was introduced by a congressman from Vermont named Justin Smith Morrill. He envisioned the financing of agricultural/mechanical education and wanted to assure that education would be available to those in all social classes. -
Conflict: Sand Creek Massacre
The Sand Creek massacre (also known as the Chivington massacre, the Battle of Sand Creek or the massacre of Cheyenne Indians) was a massacre in the American Indian Wars that occured when a 675-man force of Colorado U.S. Volunteer Cavalry attacked and destroyed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 70–163 Native Americans, about two-thirds of whom were women and children. -
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Conflict: The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age in United States history is the late 19th century. The term for this period came into use in the 1920s and 1930s and was derived from writer Mark Twain's 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, which satirized an era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding. It was preceded by the Reconstruction Era and was succeeded by the Progressive Era that began in the 1890s. It was an era of rapid industrialization and economic growth, which was this "gold lining". -
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Conflict:
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, fought near the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, pitted federal troops led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer against a band of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Tensions between the two groups had been rising since the discovery of gold on Native American lands. Custer was unaware of the number of Indians fighting at Little Bighorn, and his forces were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed in what became known as Custer’s Last Stand. -
Conflict: Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. Those on the West Coast were especially prone to attribute declining wages and economic ills on the despised Chinese workers. Although the Chinese composed only .002 percent of the nation’s population, Congress passed the exclusion act to placate worker demands and assuage prevalent concerns about maintaining white racial purity. -
Conflict: Dawes Severalty Act
The Dawes Severalty Act, adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. Those who accepted allotments and lived separately from the tribe would be granted United States citizenship. The Dawes Act was amended in 1891, in 1898 by the Curtis Act, and again in 1906 by the Burke Act. -
Movement: Oklahoma Land Rush
The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the first land rush into the Unassigned Lands. The area that was opened to settlement included all or part of the present-day Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties of the US state of Oklahoma. The land run started at high noon on April 22, 1889, with an estimated 50,000 people lined up for their piece of the available two million acres. -
Conflict: Wounded Knee Massacre
Wounded Knee, located in southwestern South Dakota, was the site of conflicts between North American Indians and representatives of the U.S. government. The Wounded Knee massacre left some 15 Native Americans dead, in what was the final clash between federal troops and the Sioux. -
Movement: The Settlement of Ellis Island
Ellis Island opened in 1892 as a federal immigration station, a purpose it served for more than 60 years.The first Ellis Island Immigration Station officially opened on January 1, 1892, as three large ships waited to land. 700 immigrants passed through Ellis Island that day, and nearly 450,000 followed over the course of that first year. Over the next five decades, more than 12 million people passed through the island on their way into the United States. -
Conflict: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike was an industrial lockout and strike, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents. The battle was one of the most serious disputes in U.S. labor history. The dispute occurred at the Homestead Steel Works in the Pittsburgh area town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, and the Carnegie Steel Company. The final result was a major defeat for the union and a setback for their efforts to unionize steelworkers. -
Conflict: The Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States and a turning point for US labor law. It pitted the American Railway Union the Pullman Company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the US. The strike/boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, MI. The conflict began in Pullman, Chicago, on May 11 when nearly 4,000 factory employees of the Pullman Company began a strike in response to recent reductions in wages. -
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Movement: Angel Island
From January 21, 1910 –November 5, 1940, Angel Island, located in San Francisco Bay, was an immigration station where immigrants entering the United States were detained and interrogated. It served as a fishing and hunting site for Coastal Miwok Indians, later was constructed as a cattle ranch, and then served as a U.S. Army post starting with the Civil War. It held hundreds of thousands of immigrants, the majority from China and Japan and India and the Philippines. -
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Conflict: Cultural Assimilation of Native Americans
The cultural assimilation of Native Americans was an effort by the United States to transform Native American culture to European-American culture. George Washington and Henry Knox formulated a policy to encourage the "civilizing" process.With increased waves of immigration, there was growing public support for education to encourage a standard set of cultural values and practices to be held in common by the majority of citizens.