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Grange Movement
The Granger movement was founded in 1867, by Oliver Hudson Kelley. Its original intent was to bring farmers together to discuss agricultural styles, in an attempt to correct widespread costly and inefficient methods. -
Ghost Dance Movement
The Ghost Dance was a spiritual movement that arose among Western American Indians. It began among the Paiute in about 1869 with a series of visions of an elder, Wodziwob. These visions foresaw renewal of the Earth and help for the Paiute peoples as promised by their ancestors. -
Standard Oil
John D. Rockefeller's standard oil company was founded in 1870. By the year 1880, the oil company controlled 90 percent of oil refining in the U.S. -
Social Darwinism
A belief that encompasses the idea that those that were rich were rich and those that were poor were poor due to the natural selection of the social class and society. -
Panic of 1873
The Panic of 1873 was caused by international economic problems which led to a major national depression. Congress passed the Resumption Act of 1875, which created compensatory deflationary pressure that contributed to a general decline prices. -
WCTU
The WCTU was founded in order to bring Christian (white) women together to prohibit alcohol and support other reform movements like suffrage. The WCTU eventually became the US's largest women's organization by 1900. -
Telephone
The telephone was a very important invention because it helped improve communications between people at a distance. This invention changed human life forever. -
Tuskegee Institute
Washington taught black students at Tuskegee to help them adjust to southern white racism by gaining an education, self-respect, & economic independence that would one day lead to equal rights for blacks. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was the U.S's first law to ban immigration by race or nationality. The act banned Chinese immigration for ten years and prohibited the Chinese from becoming citizens. -
Pendelton Act
The assassination of President Garfield led to the government reforming the spoils system/patronage, where politicians offered money/jobs in exchange for political support. The Pendleton Act created the Civil Service Commission to oversee examinations for government employees to avoid patronage. Civil-service reform did reign in patronage, but also led to politicians allying themselves with big business leaders and lobbyists. -
AFL
After the fall of the Knights of Labor after the Haymarket Riot, skilled workers joined the less-utopian American Federation of Labor. The Federation aimed for a fairer share of labor, higher wages, lower hours, and better working conditions by using walkouts, boycotts, and strikes and soon grew to have 500,000 members by 1900. The AF of L did not, however, represent unskilled laborers and many women and blacks like the K of L had tried to before. -
Dawes act of 1887
This act allowed Indian reservation land to be broken up into small allotments for sale to individuals. The purpose of the act was to encourage American Indians to become farmers, but the plots were too small to support families or to raise livestock. -
Interstate Commerce Act and Commission
The Interstate Commerce Act required that railroads charge fair rates to their customers and make those rates public. This legislation also created the Interstate Commerce Commission, which had the authority to investigate and prosecute companies who violated the law. -
Gospel of Wealth
In this book Carnegie asserted the benefits and responsibilities of wealth, calling on the wealthy to consider “the most beneficial result for the community.” One of Carnegie’s first big moves was a massive program to build public libraries, they built a total of 2,509 Carnegie libraries between 1883 and 1929. -
Hull House
In Chicago, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr opened Hull House, a settlement house offering services to the poor, the working class, and immigrants. By 1887, there were 74 settlements in the United States, and the number had ballooned to more than 400 by 1890. The movement helped professionalize the field of social work. -
NAWSA
The 2 rival women's suffrage organization, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association, banded together to give women the vote both by state and with a federal amendment.The NAWSA played a major role in the passage of the 19th Amendment allowing women to vote in 1920. -
Wounded Knee
The US banned the Indian Sun Dance in 1884 to get Indians to give up their tribal religions and assimilate. Instead, the "Ghost Dance" spread in order to resist assimilation under the Dawes Severalty Act.
The US army killed around 200 Indians, including women and children, and practice of the Ghost Dance dropped hugely out of fear. -
Ellis Island
More than 12 million steerage and third class immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and when it shut down in 1924 -
Panic of 1893
A stock market crash occurred and caused the Panic of 1893 which led to the bankruptcy of the United States Treasury. -
Plessy vs. Ferguson
Louisiana passed a law segregating railroad cars, which was protested and brought to court by Homer Plessy.
The Supreme Court ruled that the law did not violate the 14th amendment so long as segregated facilities were "separate but equal."