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The Gilded Age
Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner were the first to call the years after the Civil War the "gilded age." Struck by what they saw as the rampant greed and speculative frenzy of the marketplace, and the corruption pervading national politics, they satirized a society whose serious problems, they felt, had been veiled by a thin coating of gold. The label has stuck. Now usually applied to the period extending from the election of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868 to the elevation of reformer Theodore.R. -
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th President of the United States (1869–77). As Commanding General (1864–69), Grant worked closely with President Abraham Lincoln to lead the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War. He implemented Congressional Reconstruction, often at odds with Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson. Twice elected president, Grant led the Republicans in their effort to remove slavery -
A golden spike is driven into a railroad tie at Promontory Point, Utah
May 10: A golden spike is driven into a railroad tie at Promontory Point, Utah, completing the transcontinental railroad. Built in just over three years by 20,000 workers, it had 1,775 miles of track. The railroad's promoters received 23 million acres of land and $64 million in loans as an incentive. -
John D. Rockefeller forms Standard Oil of Ohio.
31-year-old John D. Rockefeller forms Standard Oil of Ohio. -
P.T. Barnum opens his three-ring circus
P.T. Barnum opens his three-ring circus, hailing it as the "Greatest Show on
Earth." in Brooklyn -
The Great Chicago Fire
October 8th- October 10th 1871, the Great Chicago Fire Claims 250 Lives and Destroys 17,500 Buildings in Chicago -
Montgomery Ward begins to sell goods to rural customers by mail.
Montgomery Ward begins to sell goods to rural customers by mail. Nov. 5: Susan B. Anthony and other women's suffrage advocates are arrested for attempting to vote in Rochester, N.Y. -
Women's Christian Temperance Union
The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded in Cleveland, Ohio in November of 1874. It grew out of the "Woman's Crusade" of the winter of 1873-1874. Initial groups in Fredonia, New York and Hillsboro and Washington Court House, Ohio, after listening to a lecture by Dr. Dio Lewis, were moved to a non-violent protest against the dangers of alcohol. -
The Supreme Court rules that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 only forbids stateimposeddiscrimination, not that by individuals or corporations.
The Supreme Court rules that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 only forbids state-imposed discrimination, not that by individuals or corporations. This angered both blacks and whites for they felt that this legalized segregation. -
The Telephone
The Scottish-born Bell worked in London with his father, Melville Bell, who developed Visible Speech, a written system used to teach speaking to the deaf. In the 1870s, the Bells moved to Boston, Massachusetts. While in Boston, Bell became very interested in the possibility of transmitting speech over wires.With the help of Thomas A. Watson, a Boston machine shop employee, Bell developed a prototype, In this first telephone. -
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford Birchard Hayes (October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was the 19th President of the United States (1877–1881). As president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction, began the efforts that led to civil service reform, and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War and Reconstruction.Hayes, an attorney in Ohio, became city solicitor of Cincinnati from 1858 to 1861. When the Civil War began, he left a fledgling political career to join the Union Army as an officer. -
Edison Invents the Phonograph
Thomas Edison created many inventions, but his favorite was the phonograph. While working on improvements to the telegraph and the telephone, Edison figured out a way to record sound on tinfoil-coated cylinders. In 1877, he created a machine with two needles: one for recording and one for playback. When Edison spoke into the mouthpiece, the sound vibrations of his voice would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle. What do you think were the first words that Edison spoke into the -
James A. Garfield
James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) was the 20th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881 until his assassination later that year. Garfield had served nine terms in the House of Representatives, and had been elected to the Senate before his candidacy for the White House, though he declined the senatorship once he was president-elect. He is the only sitting House member to be elected president. -
Chester A. Arthur
Chester Alan Arthur (October 5, 1829 – November 18, 1886) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 21st President of the United States (1881–1885); he succeeded James A. Garfield upon the latter's assassination. At the outset, Arthur struggled to overcome a slightly negative reputation, which stemmed from his early career in politics as part of New York's Republican political machine. He succeeded by embracing the cause of civil service reform. -
Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese immigration for tenyears
May 6: Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese Chinese immigration for ten years. -
Joseph Pulitzer purchases the New York World from Jay Gould.
Joseph Pulitzer purchases the New York World from Jay Gould. Circulation soars from 20,000 to 250,000 in four years. -
Congress passes the Pendleton Act, establishing a Civil Service Commission andfilling government positions by a merit system.
Jan. 16: Congress passes the Pendleton Act, establishing a Civil Service Commission and filling government positions by a merit system, including competitive examinations. -
The creation of Standard Time
Efficient rail transportation demanded a more uniform time-keeping system. Rather than turning to the federal governments of the United States and Canada to create a North American system of time zones, the powerful railroad companies took it upon themselves to create a new time code system. The companies agreed to divide the continent into four time zones; the dividing lines adopted were very close to the ones we still use today. -
The Home Insurance Building
The Home Insurance Building was completed in 1885; it originally had 10 stories and stretched 138 feet in the air. During its construction, city authorities were so worried that the building would topple over that they halted construction for a period of time so that they could ensure its safety. In 1890, two additional floors were added at the top, bringing the total height to 180 feet (55 meters). In addition to being the first of a new generation of steel-framed skyscrapers. -
May Day
At its national convention in Chicago, held in 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labor), proclaimed that "eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor from and after May 1, 1886." The following year, the FOTLU, backed by many Knights of Labor locals, reiterated their proclamation stating that it would be supported by strikes and demonstrations. -
The Haymarket Affair
The Haymarket affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre or Haymarket riot) was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day and in reaction to the killing of several workers the previous day by the police. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. -
President Grover Cleveland unveils the Statue of Liberty.
As President Cleveland accepted the statue on behalf of American citizens, he declared “we will not forget that liberty here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected.” The statue quickly became a symbol of America’s humanitarianism and willingness to take in the world’s “tired, poor and huddled masses”—in the words of the poem by Emma Lazarus inscribed on the monument’s pedestal—who yearned for freedom and a better life. -
Samuel Gompers forms his organization, the American Federation of Labor.
Dec. 8: The American Federation of Labor was founded, with Samuel Gompers as president. Membership was restricted to skilled craftsmen. -
The interstate Commerce Act
The Interstate Commerce Act requires railroads to charge reasonable rates and forbids them from from offering rate reductions to preferred customers. The Act created a federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which it charged with monitoring railroads to ensure that they complied with the new regulations.
The Act was the first federal law to regulate private industry in the United States. It was later amended to regulate other modes of transportation and commerce -
Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was the 23rd President of the United States (1889–1893); he was the grandson of the ninth President, William Henry Harrison. Before ascending to the presidency, Harrison established himself as a prominent local attorney, Presbyterian church leader and politician in Indianapolis, Indiana. During the American Civil War, he served the Union as a colonel and on February 14, 1865 was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a brevet brigadier of volunteers -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts. It was named for Senator John Sherman of Ohio, who was a chairman of the Senate finance committee and the Secretary of the Treasury under President Hayes. Several states had passed similar laws, but they were limited to intrastate businesses. The Sherman Antitrust Act was based on the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. -
The populist party
The Populist Party (also known as the People's Party) was founded in Ohio in 1891. Its support came from poor white farmers across the South and also in the Plains states. They viewed the two main parties, the Democrats and Republicans, as elitist and unrepresentative of their needs. The Populist Party called for the abolition of banks and Government control of railroads and communications. -
James Naismith (BasketBall)
was a Canadian physical educator, physician, chaplain, sports coach and innovator. He invented the sport of basketball in 1891. He wrote the original basketball rulebook, founded the University of Kansas basketball program, and lived to see basketball adopted as an Olympic demonstration sport in 1904 and as an official event at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, as well as the birth of both the National Invitation Tournament (1938) and the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship (1939). -
Ellis Island opens to screen immigrants.
Jan. 1: Ellis Island opens to screen immigrants. Twenty million immigrants passed through it before it was closed in 1954. -
Homestead Steelworks strike that begins.
July 2: Homestead Steelworks Henry Clay Frick, who managed Andrew Carnegie's steelworks at Homestead, Pa., cuts wages, precipitating a strike that begins June 26. In a pitched battle with Pinkerton guards, brought in to protect the plant, ten strikers and three Pinkertons are killed. Pennsylvania's governor then sent in the state militia to protect strikebreakers. The strike ended Nov. 20. -
The Pullman Strike
May 10: Pullman Strike. Workers at the Pullman sleeping car plant in Chicago go on strike after the company cut wages without reducing rents in company-owned housing. On June 26, the American Railway Union begins to boycott trains carrying Pullman cars. -
The Supreme Court strikes down an income tax.
May 20: The Supreme Court strikes down an income tax. -
William Jennings Bryan electrified the Democratic convention with his "Cross ofGold" speech and received the party's nomination,
July 7: "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." William Jennings Bryan electrified the Democratic convention with his "Cross of Gold" speech and received the party's nomination, but was defeated Nov. 3 by Republican William McKinley. -
William Mckinley
William McKinley (January 29, 1843 – September 14, 1901) was the 25th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897, until his assassination in September 1901, six months into his second term. McKinley led the nation to victory in the Spanish–American War, raised protective tariffs to promote American industry, and maintained the nation on the gold standard in a rejection of inflationary proposals. -
Andrew Carnegie sells US Steel to JP Morgan
In 1901, Carnegie was 66 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation to this end. John Pierpont Morgan was a banker and perhaps America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiently Carnegie produced profit. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cut costs, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To this end, he needed to buy out -
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt ,October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), he was an American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, naturalist, and reformer who served as the 26th President of the United States, from 1901 to 1909. A leader of the Republican Party, he was a leading force of the Progressive Era. Born a sickly child with debilitating asthma, Roosevelt embraced a strenuous lifestyle and successfully regained his health. He was also known as the youngest president in history.
