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Pikes Peak gold rush
The Pike's Peak Gold Rush was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 and lasted until roughly the creation of the Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861. Pike's Peak Gold Rush brought in a lot of immigrants. An estimated 100,000 gold seekers took part in the gold rush. -
Nevada Comstock Lode discovered
It was the first major discovery of silver ore in the United States. It sparked a silver rush of prospectors to the area, scrambling to staek their claims. The discovery caused considerable excitement in California and throughout the United States, the greatest since the discovery of gold in California. The Comstock Lode is notable for the mining technology that is spurred. -
Charles Darwin publishes ON the Origin of Species
It is a work of scentific literature which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. It introduced the scentific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection.It presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. -
Morrill Act provides public land for higher education
Funded educational institutions by granting federally controlled land to the states for them to develop or sell to raise funds to establish and endow 'land grant' colleges. The mission is to focus on the teaching of pratical agriculture, science, military service, and engineering. This mission was in contrast to the historic practice of higher education to focus on an abstract liberal arts curriculm. -
Congress authorizes a transcontinental railroad
Four of the five transcontinental railroads were built with assistance from the federal government through land grants. The railroads were assured land on which to lay the tracks and land to sell, the proceeds of which helped companies finance the construction of their railroads. Not all railroads were built with government assistance, however. -
Homestead Act
Gives an applicant ownership of land at little or no cost. Usually consisted of grants totaling 160 acres of unappropiated federal land within the boundaries of public land states. It was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Anyone who had never taken arms against the U.S. government could file an application to claim a federal land grant. -
Nevada admitted to the union
It became the 36th state in the Union. -
Sand Creek massacre
It was an atrocity in the Indian Wars of the United States, when a 700-man force of Colorado Territory militia attacked and destroyed a village of friendly Cheyenne and Arapaho encamped in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 70-163 Indians, about two-thirds of whom were women and children. -
National Labor Union Organized
The National Labor Union (NLU) was the first national labor federation in the United States. Founded in 1866 and dissolved in 1873, It was led by William H. Sylvis. The National Labor Union sought instead to bring together all of the national labor organizations in existence, as well as the "eight-hour leagues" established to press for the eight-hour day, to create a national federal cherokee union in those areas where none existed. -
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals(ASPCA) created
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing cruelty towards animals. The organization's mission is "to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States. Henry Bergh founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It was founded to stop the injustices animals face across the United States. -
National Grange organized
It is a fraternal organization in the United States which encourages families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and agriculture. The Grange, founded after the Civil War in 1867, is the oldest American agricultural advocacy group with a national scope. It's major accomplishments included passage of the Granger Laws and the establishment of rural free mail delivery. -
Grant defeats Seymour for the presidency
Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant(Republican from Ohio) v. Horatio Seymour(Democratic from New York);grant got 214 elecoral votes and Seymour got 80 electoral votes;first presidential election after the Civil War; Grant was the first president elected with a minority of white votes;nicknamed "Unconditional Surrender" due to hard nosed war tactics;Grant cabinet was corrupt, and numerous scandals, such as the Fisk-Gould gold scheme, Crédit Mobilier, and the Whiskey Ring marred his presidency. -
Wyoming Territory grants women the right to vote
Wyoming becomes first U.S. territory to pass a law permitting women to vote. -
Knights of Labor organized
The largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence V. Powderly. The Knights promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected Socialism and radicalism, demanded the eight-hour day, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism. -
Fisk and Gould corner the gold market
caused black friday when Fisk and Gould cornered the gold market; scandal that rocked Grants presidential period; sought to profit from government buying back the "greenbacks" with gold;Gould and Fisk first recruited Grant’s brother-in-law, a financier,Abel Corbin;used Corbin to get close to Grant in social situations where they would argue against government sale of gold;Corbin convinced Grant to appoint General Daniel Butterfield as assistant Treasurer to tip off upcoming sale of gold -
Standard OIl Company organiized
Rockefeller’s stake in the oil industry increased as the industry itself expanded, spurred by the rapidly spreading use of kerosene for lighting. In 1870 he organized The Standard Oil Company along with his brother William, Andrews, Henry M. Flagler, S.V. Harkness, and others. It had a capital of $1 million. By 1872 Standard Oil had purchased and thus controlled nearly all the refining firms in Cleveland, plus two refineries in the New York City area. -
Tweed scandal in New York
Boss tweed(Democrat) employed bribery, graft and fraud elections to milk the metropolis of as much as $200 million;New york times found evidence and published it in 1871;Thomas Nast made cartoons incriminating Tweed mercilessly;Tweed was tride and sent to jail to die behind bars -
Woodhull and Clafin's Weekly published
First women published newspaper. -
Credit Mobilier scandal exposed
The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872 involved the Union Pacific Railroad and the Crédit Mobilier of America construction company in the building of the western portion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. In 1868 Congressman Oakes Ames had distributed Crédit Mobilier shares of stock to other congressmen, in addition to making cash bribes, during the Andrew Johnson presidency. The scandal's origins dated back to the Abraham Lincoln presidency, when the Union Pacific Railroad was chartered. -
Liberal Republicans break with Grant
The Liberal Republican Revolt of 1872.By the 1872 election, many people had had enough. Reformers started the Liberal Rebpublican Party to clean things up.The Liberal Republicans nominated Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, as their candidate.Strangely, the Democrats also endorsed Greeley since they were so eager to gain office.Greeley had lambasted the Democrats through his paper, but he was soft on allowing the South to return to the nation, which the Democrats liked. -
Grant defeats Greeley for the presidency
The campaigning was nasty, but colorful. Greeley was called an atheist, communist, free-lover, vegetarian, brown-bread eater, and co-signor of Jefferson Davis' bail bond. Grant was called a drunk ignoramus and swindler.Grant won the election handily, 286 to 66.The Liberal Republicans did spook the Republican Congress into passing some reforms. (1) An amnesty act was passed which removed restrictions that'd been placed on many Southerners. Also, (2) there was effort to reduce the tariff. -
Comstock Law passed
The Comstock Act was a United States federal law which amended the Post Office Act and made it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious" materials through the mail, including contraceptive devices and information. In addition to banning contraceptives, this act also banned the distribution of information on abortion for educational purposes. Twenty-four states passed similar prohibitions on materials distributed within the states -
Panic of 1873
The Panic of 1873 brought economic troubles.It was started by over-spending with borrowed money, this time in railroads and factories. Growth was too fast and over-extended what the market could sustain.The causes of the panic were the same old ones that’d caused recessions every 20 years that century: (1) over-speculation (or over-spending) and (2) too-easy credit given by the banks.Initially, the panic was sparked when banks and businesses began to go bankrupt.Blacks wer hit really hard. -
Chautauqua education movement launched
It an adult education movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Named after Chautauqua Lake where the first was held, Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers, preachers and specialists of the day.The first Chautauqua was organized by minister John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller. -
Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) organized
It was the first mass organization among women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity. It operated at an international level and in the context of religion and reform, including missionary work as well as matters of social reform such as suffrage. The connections and contradictions between the two parts of its purpose — Christianity and Temperance — meant that the women -
Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Civil Rights Act of 1875 (18 Stat. 335-337),[2] sometimes called Enforcement Act or Force Act, was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction Era that guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and prohibited exclusion from jury service. The Supreme Court decided the act was unconstitutional in 1883. -
Resumption Act passed
Resumption Act of 1875, in U.S. history, culmination of the struggle between “soft money” forces, who advocated continued use of Civil War greenbacks, and their “hard money” opponents, who wished to redeem the paper money and resume a specie currency. The Resumption Act was passed to actually start to lower the number of greenbacks in circulation and to redeem paper money at face value starting in 1879. -
Whiskey Ring scandal
The so-called "Whiskey Ring" looked bad for Grant. Folks stole whiskey tax money from the government. Grant's own secretary was involved and, despite him saying "Let no guilty man escape," Grant helped let the thief off the hook.The Whiskey Ring was seen by many as a sign of corruption under the Republican governments that took power across the nation. The Whiskey Ring scandal, along with other alleged abuses of power by the Republican party, contributed to national weariness of Reconstruction. -
John Hopkins University graduate school established
It is a not-for-profit private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The university was named for its benefactor the philanthropist Johns Hopkins. The university is organized into two undergraduate divisions and five graduate divisions on two main campuses the Homewood campus and the Medical Institutions campus both located in Baltimore. The university also consists of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and the Peabody Institute. -
Bell invents the telephone
In the 1870s, two inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other, Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won. -
Hayes-Tilden election standoff and crisis
The Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes. He was called the "Great Unknown", for obvious reasons;he was neutral in the Conkling and Blained wars within the Republican party.And, his greatest attribute, he came from Ohio, an important state in winning the race.The Democrats nominated Samuel Tilden.Tilden's claim-to-fame was that he'd nailed Boss Tweed.Tilden got 184 electoral votes; he needed 185 to win.4.Both sides sent people to the questionable states (LA, SC, FL, and OR). -
Battle of Little Bighorn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn was an armed engagement between combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, against the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle was the most prominent action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. It was an overwhelming victory for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho, led by several major war leaders, including Crazy Horse and Chief Gall, inspired by the visions of Sitting Bull. -
Colorado admitted to the Union
It was admitted as the 38th state in the union. -
Compromise of 1877
A deal was made in the Compromise of 1877. True to a compromise, both sides did some give-and-take.The North got Rutherford B. Hayes elected as a Republican president.The South got a pledge that Hayes would removal of military occupation in the South.This did happen, thus ending Reconstruction. The bad news for the freedmen was that Southern blacks were now effectively left alone to fend for themselves.Money would be spent on the Texas and Pacific railroad. -
Nez Pierce Indian War
The Nez Perce War was an armed conflict between several bands of the Nez Perce tribe of Native Americans and their allies, a small band of the Palouse tribe led by Red Echo and Bald head, against the United States Army. The conflict, fought between June–October 1877, stemmed from the refusal of several bands of the Nez Perce, dubbed "non-treaty Indians", to give up their ancestral lands in the Pacific Northwest and move to an Indian reservation in Idaho. -
Railroad strikes paralyze nation
The 4 largest railroads got together and decided to cut employee wages by 10%. The workers fought back by going on strike.This railroad shut-down crippled the nation and President Hayes called in federal troops to stop the unrest amongst the striking workers.The trouble went on several weeks but eventually ended with the workers losing on the losing side. This failed strike showed the weaknesses of the labor movement at the time. -
Henry George publishes Progress and Poverty
The book is a treatise on the cyclical nature of an industrial economy and its remedies. In Progress and Poverty, George examines various proposed strategies to prevent business depressions, unemployment and poverty, but finds them unsatisfactory. As an alternative he proposes his own solution: a single tax on land values.George argued that a land value tax would give landowners an incentive to use the land in a productive way. -
Dumbell tenement introduced
The 1879 law required that every inhabitable room have a window opening to plain air, a requirement that was met by including air shafts between adjacent buildings.The 1879 Act was a response to the failure of the 1867 Tenement House Act.It was though well-intentioned, failed even worse than the 1867 Act. Tenement dwellers tossed garbage, bilge water and waste into these air shafts which were not designed for garbage removal. -
Mary Baker Eddy establishes Christian Science
It was a system of religious thought and practice adopted by the Church of Christ, Scientist. It is a set of beliefs and practices belonging to the metaphysical–New Thought family of new religious movements. The religion's adherents, known as Christian Scientists, subscribe to a radical form of philosophical idealism, believing that spiritual reality is the only reality and that the material world is an illusion. -
Salvation Army begins work in America
The Salvation Army is a Christian denomination and international charitable organisation organised in a quasi-military structure. Its founders William and Catherine Booth sought to bring salvation to the poor, destitute and hungry by meeting both their "physical and spiritual needs". The theology of the Salvation Army is mainstream Methodist although it is distinctive in government and practice. -
Edison invents the electric light
Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commercially practical incandescent light.After many experiments with platinum and other metal filaments, Edison returned to a carbon filament.[inconsistent] The first successful test was on October 22, 1879; it lasted 13.5 hours. Edison continued to improve this design and by November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 for an electric lamp. -
Garfield defeats Hancock for presidency
The United States presidential election of 1880 was largely seen as a referendum on the end of Reconstruction in Southern states carried out by the Republicans.Republicans supported higher tariffs and the Democrats supported lower ones.The Republican Party eventually chose James A. Garfield.The Democratic Partychose General Winfield Scott Hancock. Garfield was easily elected, capturing 214 of the 369 electoral votes cast.It is to date the smallest popular vote victory in American history. -
Helen Hunt Jackson publishes A Century of Dishonor
It is a non-fiction book by Helen Hunt Jackson first published in 1881 that chronicled the experiences of Native Americans in the United States, focusing on injustices. Jackson wrote A Century of Dishonor in an attempt to change government ideas/policy toward Native Americans at a time when effects of the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act (making the entire Native American population wards of the nation) had begun to draw the attention of the public. -
American Red Cross founded
The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States. It is the designated U.S. affiliate of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. -
Garfield assassinated; Authur assumes presidency
Garfield was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau in September of 1881.Guiteau said he was a Stalwart, like V.P. Chester Arthur, and his lawyers essentially used the insanity defense saying he didn't know right from wrong.
Regardless, he was found guilty and hanged.As vice president, Chester Arthur became president. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. It forbade the immigration of Chinese to America.This was the first immigration restriction America passed; until this point in history, immigrants simply came to America without hindrance. it was intended to last only 10 years.This law was repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943. -
Pendleton Act sets up Civil Service Commission
The Pendleton Act was the height of political reform. It was called the "Magna Carta of civil service reform" meaning it required merit to get jobs, not simply knowing someone in a high position.The act provided selection of government employees by competitive exams, rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation. It also made it illegal to fire or demote government employees for political reasons and prohibits soliciting campaign donations on Federal government property. -
Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. -
Federal government outlaws Indian Sun Dance
The Sun Dance is a religious ceremony practiced by a number of Native American and First Nations Peoples, primarily those of the Plains Nations. Each tribe has its own distinct practices and ceremonial protocols. Though only some Nations' Sun Dances include the piercings, the Canadian Government outlawed that feature of the Sun Dance in 1895. It is unclear about how often this law was enforced or how successfully, and, in at least one instance, police gave their permission for the ceremony to be -
Cleveland defeats Blaine for presidency
The Republicans nominated James G. Blaine for president in the 1884 election.Reform-minded Republicans didn't like this choice and went over to the Democrats. They were called "Mugwumps", supposedly with "their mug on one side and their wump on the other".The Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland as their candidate.The mudslinging reached the worst level up until that point during the campaign. A popular topic was Cleveland's affair and the child it had produced some 8 years earlier, he won. -
Linotype invented
The linotype machine is a "line casting" machine used in printing.Along with letterpress printing, linotype was the industry standard for newspapers, magazines and posters from the late 19th century to the 1960s and 70s. The machine revolutionized typesetting and with it especially newspaper publishing, making it possible for a relatively small number of operators to set type for many pages on a daily basis. Before Mergenthaler's invention of the linotype in 1884, no newspaper in the world. -
Wabash Case
The decision narrowed earlier ones, favorable to state regulation of those phases of interstate commerce upon which Congress itself had not acted. The court declared invalid an Illinois law prohibiting long- and short-haul clauses in transportation contracts as an infringement on the exclusive powers of Congress granted by the commerce clause of the Constitution. The result of the case was denial of state power to regulate interstate rates for railroads. -
Haymarket Square bombed
It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded.The Haymarket affair is generally considered significant as the origin of international May Day observances for workers. -
Statue of Liberty erected in New York Harbor
is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue, a gift to the United States from the people of France, is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet. -
American Federation of Labor formed
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio in May 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers' International Union was elected president of the Federation at its founding convention and was reelected every year except one until his death in 1924. -
American Protective Association (APA) formed
The American Protective Association (APA) was an American anti-Catholic secret society established in 1887 by Canadian Protestants. It was strongest in the Midwest, and came under heavy attack from Democrats until its collapse in the mid-1890s.The American Protective Association was founded by Attorney Henry F. Bowers in Clinton, Iowa, ostensibly in response to a perceived threat by Catholics upon the American public schools system and other American institutions. -
Dawes Severalty Act
The Dawes Act of 1887 adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. The Act was named for its sponsor, Senator Henry Laurens Dawes of Massachusetts. The stated objective of the Dawes Act was to stimulate assimilation of Indians into American society.The act also provided that the government would purchase Indian land "excess" to that needed for allotment and open it up for settlement. -
Hatch act suppements Morrill Act
It gave federal funds to state land-grant colleges in order to create a series of agricultural experiment stations, as well as pass along new information, especially in the areas of soil minerals and plant growth. The bill was named for Congressman William Hatch, who chaired the House Committee of Agriculture at the time the bill was introduced. State agricultural stations created under this act were usually connected with those land-grant state colleges and university. -
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.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. -
Edward Bellamy publishes Looking Backward
It is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a lawyer and writer from Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts; it was first published in 1887. According to Erich Fromm, Looking Backward is "one of the most remarkable books ever published in America".It influenced a large number of intellectuals, and appears by title in many of the major Marxist writings of the day. -
Harrison defeats Cleveland for presidency
The tariff issue came to a full head of steam in the election of 1888.Cleveland was up for re-election by the Democrats, Benjamin Harrison was up as the Republican.Harrison won in a very close race in 1888. Cleveland became the first president voted out of office since Martin Van Buren. -
Oklahoma opened to settlement
The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as the State of Oklahoma. -
Jane Adams founds Hull House in Chicago
Hull House was a settlement house in the United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located in the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois, Hull House (named for the home's first owner) opened its doors to the recently arrived European immigrants. By 1911, Hull House had grown to 13 buildings. -
Moody Bible Institute established in Chicago
Moody Bible Institute (MBI) is a Christian institution of higher education that was founded by evangelist and businessman Dwight Lyman Moody in 1886. In early 1886, D. L. Moody established the Chicago Evangelization Society, for the "education and training of Christian workers, including teachers, ministers, missionaries and musicians who may completely and effectively proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ". -
Thomas B. "Czar" Reed becomes Speaker of the House of Representatives
The Republicans were eager to assert their power in Congress and found their leader in Speaker of the House Thomas "Czar" Reed. Reed was a tall man, super debater, and had an acid-sarcastic tongue that cut at opponents. He ran the House of Representatives like a dictator.Democrats planned to fight back by not answering to roll call and thus not achieving a quorum.Czar Reed solved the quorum battle by counting Democrats as present if they were there but hadn't answered the roll call. -
"Billion-Dollar" Congress
The Billion Dollar Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C., from March 4, 1889, to March 4, 1891.The apportionment of seats in this House of Representatives was based on the Tenth Census of the United States in 1880. Both chambers had a Republican majority. -
Battle of Wounded Knee
The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on December 29, 1890,near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, USA. It was the last battle of the American Indian Wars. On the day before, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside intercepted Spotted Elk's band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them five miles westward to Wounded Knee Creek where they made camp. -
National American Woman Suffrage Association formed
It was formed as a unification of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The NAWSA continued the work of both associations by becoming the parent organization of hundreds of smaller local and state groups, and by helping to pass woman suffrage legislation at the state and local level.Susan B. Anthony was the dominant figure in NAWSA from 1890 to 1900. -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
It prohibits certain business activities that federal government regulators deem to be anticompetitive, and requires the federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of being in violation. It was the first federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by the United States federal government. -
Sherman Silver Purchase Act (repealed 1893)
The Sherman Silver Purchase Act did not authorize the free and unlimited coinage of silver that the Free Silver supporters wanted.It increased the amount of silver the government was required to purchase on a recurrent monthly basis to 4.5 million ounces.The Sherman Silver Purchase Act had been passed in response to the growing complaints of farmers' and miners' interests.Under the Act, the federal government purchased millions of ounces of silver; it became the second-largest buyer in the world -
McKinley Tariff Act
The McKinley Tariff (1890) hiked rates to roughly 48%, the highest peacetime rate ever.The tariff was a double-edged sword: business folks loved the protection it gave, but farmers disliked the fact that manufactured goods were now more expensive. -
Baseball invented
Baseball was developed from earlier folk games in England. In at least one version of the game, teams pitched to themselves, runners went around the bases in the opposite direction of today's game, and players could be put out by being hit with the ball. Then as now, a batter was called out after three strikes.Few details of how the modern game developed from earlier folk games are known. Some think that various folk games resulted in a game called town ball from which baseball was born. -
Homestead steel strike
The Homestead Strike was an industrial lockout and strike , culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents on July 6, 1892. The battle was the second largest and one of the most serious disputes in U.S. labor history second only to the Battle of Blair Mountain. The dispute occurred at the Homestead Steel Works in the town of Homestead, Pennsylvania.The final result was a major defeat for the union and a setback for efforts to unionize steelworkers. -
Coeur d'Alene(Idaho) silver miners' strike
The Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892 erupted in violence when labor union miners discovered they had been infiltrated by a Pinkerton agent who had routinely provided union information to the mine owners. The response to that violence, disastrous for the local miners' union, became the primary motivation for the formation of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) the following year. -
Cleveland defeats Harrison and Weaver to regain presidency
Former President Grover Cleveland and incumbent President Benjamin Harrison both ran for re-election to a second term. In 1888, Cleveland had won the popular vote over Harrison but lost in the electoral college, thus losing the election. In this rematch, Cleveland won both the popular and electoral vote, thus becoming the only person in American history to be elected to a second, non-consecutive presidential term and returned to the presidency as the 24th president. -
Lillian Wald opens Henry Street Settlement in New York
The Henry Street Settlement is a not-for-profit social service agency in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City that provides social services, arts programs and health care services to New Yorkers of all ages. It was founded in 1893 by Progressive reformer and nurse Lillian Wald. -
Anti-Saloon League Formed
The Anti-Saloon League was the leading organization lobbying for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century. It was a key component of the Progressive Era, and was strongest in the South and rural North, drawing heavy support from pietistic Protestant ministers and their congregations, especially Methodists, Baptists, Disciples and Congregationalists.It concentrated on legislation, and cared about how legislators voted, not whether they drank or not. -
Columbian exposition held in Chicago
It was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World in 1492. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self-image, and American industrial optimism. The Chicago Columbian Exposition was, in large part, designed by Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted. It was designed to follow Beaux Arts principles of design, namely French neoclassical architecture principles based on symmetry. -
Depression of 1893 begins
It was the first recession or depression during the industrial age. This completed the almost predictable, every-20-year cycle of panics during the 1800s (panics occurred during 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893).Nearly 8,000 U.S. businesses went out of business in 6 months. Railroads went under too and soup kitchens popped up to feed wandering hoboes.There were other money problems to deal with. -
Fredrick Jackson Turner pblishes "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"
"The Significance of the Frontier in American History" is a seminal essay by the American historian Frederick Jackson Turner which advanced the Frontier Thesis of American history.The thesis shares his views on how the idea of the frontier shaped the American being and characteristics. He writes how the frontier drove American history and why America is what it is today. Turner reflects on the past to illustrate his point by noting human fascination with the frontier. -
"Coxey's Army" marches on Washington Pullman strike
Coxey's Army was a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey. They marched on Washington D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United States history to that time. Officially named the Army of the Commonweal in Christ, its nickname came from its leader and was more enduring. It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington and the expression "Enough food to feed Coxey's Army." -
Wilson-Gorman Tariff
The Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894 slightly reduced the United States tariff rates from the numbers set in the 1890 McKinley tariff and imposed a 2% income tax.Supported by the Democrats, this attempt at tariff reform was important because it imposed the first peacetime income tax.The bill introduced by Wilson and passed by the House significantly lowered tariff rates, in accordance with Democratic platform promises, and dropped the tariff to zero on iron ore, coal, lumber and wool. -
Utah admitted to the union
It became the 45th state admitted to the union. It is the most religiously homogeneous state in the union. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal". "Separate but equal" remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. -
McKinley defeats Bryan for presidency
This election climaxed an intensely heated contest in which Republican candidate William McKinley defeated Democrat Willaim Jennings Bryan in one of the most dramatic and complex races in American history. The 1896 election is often considered to be a realigning election that ended the ole Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System. McKinley was the strongest in cities and in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Pacific Coast. -
Library of Congress opens
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress.The Library of Congress was instituted for Congress in 1800, and was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century. After much of the original collection had been destroyed during the War of 1812, Thomas Jefferson sold 6,487 books, his entire personal collection, to the library in 1815. Library of Congress began to grow rapidly in both size and importance. -
Dingley Tariff Act
It was introduced by U.S. Representative Nelson Dingley, Jr., of Marine, raised tariffs in United States to counteract the Wilson-Gorman-Tariff Act of 1894, which had lowered tariffs. The Dingley Tariff remained in effect for tweleve years, making it the longest-lived tariff in U.S. history. It was also the highest in U.S. history. -
Charlotte Perkins Gilman publishes Women and Economics
It is considered by many to be her single greatest work and as with much of Gilman's writing. The book touched a few dominant themes; the transformation of marriage, the family, and the home, with her central agrument, "the economic independence and specialization of women as essential to the improvement of marriage, motherhood, domestic industry, and racial improvemnet. -
Kate Chopin publishes The Awakening
Set in New Orleans and the southern Louisiana coast at the end of the nineteenth century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century South. It is one of the earliest American novels thats focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also as a landmark work of early feminism. -
Gold Standard Act
The Gold Standard Act of the United States was passed in 1900 (approved on March 14) and established gold as the only standard for redeeming paper money, stopping bimetallism (which had allowed silver in exchange for gold). It was signed by President William McKinley.The Act fixed the value of the dollar at 25 8⁄10 grains of gold at "nine-tenths fine" (90% purity), equivalent to 23.22 grains (1.5046 grams) of pure gold.The Gold Standard Act confirmed the nation's commitment to the gold standa -
Theodore Dreiser publishes Sister Carrie
Sister Carrie is a novel by Theodore Dreiser about a young country girlwho moves tot he big city where she starts realizing her own American Dream, first as a mistress to men that she perceives, and later becoming a famous actress. It has been called the "greatest of all American urban novels. -
United States Steel Corporation formed
The United States Steel Corporation is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States, Canada, and Central Europe. J. P. Morgan and the attorney Elbert H. Gary founded U.S. Steel in 1901by combining Andrew Carnegie's Carnegie Steel Company with Gary's Federal Steel Company and William Henry "Judge" Moore's National Steel Company for $492 million. In 1901, it controlled two-thirds of steel production. -
National Association for theAdvancement of Colored People (NEECP) founded
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States. Its mission is “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.' -
Indians granted U.S. citenzenship
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 was proposed by Representative Homer P. Snyder (R) of New York and granted full U.S. citizenship to America's indigenous peoples, called "Indians" in this Act. The Act granted citizenship to about 125,000 of 300,000 indigenous people in the United States. The Act did not include citizens born before the effective date of the 1924 act, or outside of the United States as an indigenous person. They didn't get full citizenship and suffrage rights until 1948. -
Indian Reorganization Act
The Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934 was U.S. federal legislation that secured certain rights to Native Americans. The Act also restored to Indians the management of their assets and included provisions intended to create a sound economic foundation for the inhabitants of Indian reservations. The act did not require tribes to adopt a constitution.
