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The Industrial Revolution begins
The Industrial Revolution started in the early 1700s in Great Britain by manufacturers so their labor costs would decrease. -
Eli Whitney redesigned the British cotton gin
The British cotton gin was known as a roller gin, but Whitney redesigned it into what was called a British cotton gin. The British cotton gin could now remove the seeds from the short-staple cotton which was grown in the American South. With his redesign the machine could now produce 50 times more cotton than a worker could do in a day. His machine then ended up making cotton America's largest export. -
The Bessemer process
The Bessemer process was the first method in which steel could be mass produced. This was developed and patented by Henry Bessemer in the 1850's. It was a process that involved injecting air into molten pig irons to remove impurities. -
Edwin Drake found first successful oil well
Edwin Drake tried multiple times to find a way to get oil from the ground by drilling. When he finally succeeded in one of his drilling ideas, it worked and produced 8-10 barrels a day. What he did was he put iron tubing into the ground and he drilled inside the tubing. This way they could go as deep as they wanted or needed, without water coming into the tubes. -
The Crédit Mobilier Scandal occurs
The Crédit Mobilier of American was a company involved in the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. Some stockholder of the railroad awarded fradulent contracts to Crédit Mobilier and kept the money for themselves, some government subsidies. A congressional investigation began and a leader of the company tried to buy off key politicans but the scandal was discovered. -
Christopher Sholes makes first working typewriter
Sholes got the encouragment to make a typewriter from two of his inventor friends. Writing down his ideas from the page-numbering machine he made, he patented the first working model in 1867. -
Transcontinental Railroad completed
The Transcontinental Railroad was completed on May 10th, 1869 when crews of the Central and Union Pacific railroad companies met and joined in Promontory Summit, Utah. -
John D. Rockefeller founds Standard Oil Company
Rockefeller was an entrepreneur who helped create the American oil indusrty. He had an agressive approach towards business and he eventually monopolized the oil indusrty in America. He developed a unique management hiring senior level managers who were not owners to help run his company. A practice still followed today. -
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
Alexander Graham Bell became interested in different forms of communcation after working with deaf-mutes. He came up with an idea of the way the telephone worked, and on Feburary 14th, 1876 filed an application to patent his discovery. He had to fight off many other claims to the way the telephone worked before he finally got it patented. -
Thomas Edison invents the phonograph
The phonograph Thomas Edison invented worked by recording sound marked by indentations on a sheet of paraffin-coated paper, and when the paper was moved beaneath the stylus, the sounds were produced. -
Munn v. Illinois
This involved the question of whether Illinois had the authority to regulate the charges by grain elevators. The owners of these grain elevators argued with that such regulation with federal commerce powers deprived them of due process of law as the fourteenth amendment states. -
Haymarket Square Riot
This riot occured in Chicago, Illinois and a bomb exploded among a group of policemen as they were attemping to disperse a giant labor rally in the city's Haymarket Square -
The Interstate Commerce Act
This act attempted to regulate the growing railroad industry in the United States and established the Interstate Commerce Commission also know as the ICC which was the first federal regulatory commission. -
The Sherman Antitrust Act is passed by Congress
This was the first federal law to regulate large corporations and trusts and eliminate monopolies. It was passed by Congress in 1890. It was promoted by Senator John Sherman, of Ohio. The act outlawed any contract, combination, or conspiracy that restrained trade or monopolized any market what so ever. It has 8 sections/rules. -
Homestead Strike
On this date, all the workers of Carnegie steel manufacturing plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania went on strike. In fear, they seized the steel pant. -
Eugene Debs and the American Railway Union
Debs organizes the American Railway Union (ARU) . The United States first industrial union open to all workers, not just skilled workers or craftsmen. -
Pullman Palace Car Company calls strike
The Pullman Palace Car Company in Pullman, Illnois called a strike that soon became one of the most famous and historic crashes between labor and captial in the United States. It rose to importance after the American Railway Union made a boycott in support of the workers that were striked. -
J.P. Morgan forms the U.S. Steel Corporation
Morgan in the United States formed the world's first billion dollar steel corporation. -
Mother Jones leads march
Mother Jones led a march from Philadelpha to New York City to draw attention to stopping child labor. -
The Wright brother's first flight
The Wright Brothers had their first successful flight of a self-powered flying machine. The first airplane flew from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. -
Lochner vs. NY Decision
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the New York law for setting hours a worker can work in any type of bakery was unconstitutional. -
Henry Ford introduces his Model T Car
Ford's Model T Car was a durable, inexpensive, and efficient car. He revolutionized the automobile industry with the Model T Car. He wanted to make a car the average american worker could afford. He used an assembly line production and a single car model to mass produce cars. This method resulted in high production, low cost, and more cars sold.