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Morill Land Grant College Act (west)
An Act donating Public Lands to the several States and Territories which may provide Colleges for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. -
Homestead Act ( West)
Signed into law in May 1862, the Homestead Act opened up settlement in the western United States, allowing any American, including freed slaves, to put in a claim for up to 160 free acres of federal land. -
Union Pacific (West)
The freight hauling railroad that operates 8,500 locomotives over 32,100 route-miles in 23 states west of Chicago and New Orleans.The original company, the Union Pacific Rail Road was incorporated, under an act of Congress entitled Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 -
Bessemer Process (INDP)
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace -
Period: to
Transforming The West
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Promontary Point, Utah (West)
The presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.S. history. -
John Rockefeller (INDP)
Rockefeller formed the Standard Oil Company of Ohio.Standard Oil gained a monopoly in the oil industry by buying rival refineries and developing companies for distributing and marketing its products around the globe.In 1890, the U.S. Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act. Two years later, the Ohio Supreme Court dissolved the Standard Oil Trust -
Sara Winnemucca (Western)
Winnemucca traveled throughout the country giving lectures on the conditions in Indian country, often charging the government with mismanagement of Indian affairs. Sara Winnemucca became the most recognized Indian woman of the late nineteenth century. -
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Becoming An Industrial Power
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Period: to
The Gilded Age
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Cornelius Vanderbilt (INDP)
An American business magnate and philanthropist who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. -
Battle of Little Big Horn (West)
When a number of tribes missed a federal deadline to move to reservations, the U.S. Army, including Custer and his federal troops, were dispatched to confront them. Custer was unaware of the number of Indians fighting under the command of Sitting Bull at Little Bighorn, and his forces were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed in what became known as Custer’s Last Stand. -
Exodusters (West)
Exodusters was a name given to African Americans who migrated from states along the Mississippi River to Kansas in the late nineteenth century. It was the first general migration of blacks following the Civil War. -
Five and Dime Stores (INDP)
A store offering a wide assortment of inexpensive items for personal and household use. The originators of the concept were the Woolworth Bros. -
Period: to
Imperialism
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Labor Unions (INDP)
an organized association of workers, often in a trade or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests. The labor movement led efforts to stop child labor, give health benefits and provide aid to workers who were injured or retired. -
Assassination of President Garfield (Gilded Age)
When Guiteau, a lawyer with a history of mental illness, shot Garfield in the back on July 2, 1881, he thought God had told him to shoot the president. But the importance of sterilization in the operating room hadn't been realized yet. It was the infection, caused by doctors probing the president's wound with unwashed hands, that eventually killed James A. Garfield. -
Chinese Exclusion Act (Western)
It was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. -
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (West)
Cody staged an outdoor event called the “Wild West, Rocky Mountain, and Prairie Exhibition” for a Fourth of July celebration in North Platte, Nebraska. When the show was a success, Cody realized he could evoke the mythic West more effectively if he abandoned cramped theater stages for large outdoor exhibitions. Cody performed his show all around the nation to appreciative crowds often numbering 20,000 people. -
Social Darwinism (INDP)
a 19th-century theory, inspired by Darwinism, by which the social order is accounted as the product of natural selection of those persons best suited to existing living conditions and in accord with which a position of laissez-faire is advocated. -
Sears & Roebuck (INDP)
Sears quit his railway job and began the R.W. Sears Watch Company in Minneapolis.He brought watchmaker Alvah C. Roebuck into the business, and by 1893 the successful partnership officially became Sears, Roebuck and Company. -
Coca Cola (INDP)
American pharmacist John Stith Pemberton founded Coca-Cola in 1886 with a beverage concoction of COCAINE and sugary syrup.In 1899, Coca-Cola began selling its drink in bottles.The company removed cocaine from its products in 1903 -
Haymarket Sq Riot (INDP)
A labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. -
U.S.S Maine (IMP)
An American naval ship that sank in Havana Harbor during the Cuban revolt against Spain, an event that became a major political issue in the United States -
Kodak Camera (INDP)
These were the basis for the invention of motion picture film, as used by early filmmakers and Thomas Edison. -
Jane Addams (Gilded Age)
One of the most distinguished of the first generation of college-educated women, rejecting marriage and motherhood in favor of a lifetime commitment to the poor and social reform. addams moved in into an old mansion in an immigrant neighborhood of Chicago. Hull-House,became Addams’s home for the rest of her life and became the center of an experiment in philanthropy, political action, and social science research, was a model for settlement work among the poor. -
Wounded Knee (Western)
The site of two conflicts between North American Indians and representatives of the U.S. government. A massacre that left 300 Native Americans dead, in what was the final clash between federal troops and the Sioux. -
New Woman (Gilded Age)
The values of WOMEN'S SPHERE-care taking, piety, purity would be taken out of the home and placed in the public life. The result was a broad reform movement that transformed America. -
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Progressive Era
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Depression of 1893 (Gilded Age)
Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures. -
World's Colombian Exposition (Gilded Age)
The World's Columbian Exposition was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492 -
Ida B. Wells (Progress)
An African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, feminist, Georgist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She started her career as a teacher but eventually became a journalist who impacted the world due to her unrelenting determination to expose the horrors of lynching. -
Picture Brides (IMP)
Picture brides gave the Japanese in America social mobility and family formation all due to the enacting of the Gentlemen’s agreement which allowed for Japan to issue passports to the wives in Japan. The picture bride system and the Gentlemen’s agreement were a way to maneuver around the strict anti-immigration laws against Asians. -
City Beautiful Movement (Gilded Age)
In Washington, D.C., this led to the creation of the McMillan Plan, the first governmental plan to regulate aesthetics. The City Beautiful Movement promoted the idea that beautifying the city is beneficial. It spurred the creation of the Municipal Art Society in New York City, which works to promote public art in the City and also led to the development of legislative means for the City to control its physical environment. -
Plessy v. Ferguson (Progress)
It upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". -
Queen Lili'uokalani (IMP)
A new Hawaiian constitution had removed much of the monarchy’s powers in favor of an elite class of Americans. When Liliuokalani acted to restore these powers, a U.S. military-backed coup deposed her in 1893 and formed a provisional government; Hawaii was declared a republic in 1894. Liliuokalani signed a formal abdication in 1895 but continued to appeal to U.S. President Grover Cleveland for reinstatement. The United States annexed Hawaii in 1898. -
George Dewey (IMP)
He was Admiral of the Navy, the only person in United States history to have attained the rank. He is best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish–American War. -
Treaty Of Paris 1898 (IMP)
An agreement made in 1898 that involved Spain relinquishing nearly all of the remaining Spanish Empire, especially Cuba, and ceding Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. -
Professional Sports (Gilded Age)
The Golden Age of Invention saw the appearance of the telephone, electric light, Kodak camera, portable typewriter and, not entirely coincidentally, it also saw the first running of the Kentucky Derby, the introduction of lawn tennis from England, the first Harvard-Yale football game, the founding of baseball's National League, -
White Man's Burden (IMP)
A phrase used to justify European imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; it is the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The phrase implies that imperialism was motivated by a high-minded desire of whites to uplift people of color. -
Social Gospel Movement (Gilded Age)
A religious movement that arose during the second half of the nineteenth century. Ministers, especially ones belonging to the Protestant branch of Christianity, began to tie salvation and good works together. They argued that people must copy the life of Jesus Christ. -
Civil Service Exam (Gilded Age)
Those branches of public service concerned with all governmental administrative functions outside the armed services. 2. the body of persons employed in these branches. 3. a system or method of appointing government employees on the basis of competitive examinations, rather than by political patronage. -
Carrie A.Nation (Progress)
Carrie Amelia Nation was an American woman who was a radical member of the temperance movement, which opposed alcohol before the advent of Prohibition. She is particularly noteworthy for attacking alcohol-serving establishments with a hatchet -
Boxer Rebellion (IMP)
Boxer Uprising or Yihetuan Movement was a violent anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising that took place in China, toward the end of the Qing dynasty. -
Spheres Of Influence (IMP)
China was a nation in decline. In 1900, China was heavily controlled by foreign nations who tended to dominate the ports such as Shanghai. ... European nations also divided up China into spheres of influence and in these spheres the European nation involved all but ran it. The wishes of the Chinese were ignored. -
Teddy Roosevelt (Progessive)
It all started with a hunting trip President Roosevelt took in 1902 in Mississippi. Roosevelt took one look at an old bear and refused to shoot it. Word of this hit newspapers across the country, and political cartoonist Clifford Berryman picked up on the story, drawing a cartoon showing how President Roosevelt refused to shoot the bear. Michtom asked permission from President Roosevelt to call these toy bears "Teddy's bears". -
Billy Sunday (20s)
In 1883, Billy was signed to play with the Chicago White Stockings.He struck out his first 13 times at bat, but became a huge asset to the team. He was a champion sprinter, boasting a career record of 92 stolen bases. In 1891, Sunday quit baseball to devote his energies to the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). In 1903, he became an ordained preacher in the Presbyterian Church. -
Meat Inspection Act (Progress)
An American law that makes it a crime to adulterate or misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food, and ensures that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. -
Muckrakers (Progress)
The term muckraker was used in the Progressive Era to characterize reform-minded American journalists who attacked established institutions and leaders as corrupt -
Upton Sinclair (Progress)
His involvement with socialism led to a writing assignment about the plight of workers in the meatpacking industry, eventually resulting in the best-selling novel The Jungle. Sinclair earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1943 for Dragon's Teeth. He died in New Jersey in 1968. -
Dollar Diplomacy (IMP)
The goal of diplomacy was to create stability and order abroad that would best promote American commercial interests. Dollar diplomacy was evident in extensive U.S. interventions in the Caribbean and Central America, especially in measures undertaken to safeguard American financial interests in the region. -
Angel Island (IMP
it was designed to process Chinese immigrants whose entry was restricted by the Chinese Exclusion Law of 1882. A rush of immigrants from Europe were expected with the opening of the Panama Canal, but international events after 1914, including the outbreak of World War I, cancelled the expected rush, but Asians continued to arrive on the West Coast and to go through immigration procedures. -
Margaret Sanger (20s)
Sanger started her campaign to educate women about sex in 1912 by writing a newspaper column called "What Every Girl Should Know." Through her work, Sanger treated a number of women who had undergone back-alley abortions or tried to self-terminate their pregnancies. Sanger objected to the unnecessary suffering endured by these women, and she fought to make birth control information and contraceptives available.In 1916, she opened the first birth control clinic in the United States -
Federal Reserve Act (Progress)
It was created by the Congress to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. -
Ludlow Massacre (Progress)
The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. -
Trench Warfare (WWI)
Trench warfare is a form of land warfare using occupied fighting lines consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are significantly protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. The most prominent case of trench warfare is the Western Front in World War I. -
Ottoman Empire (WWI)
A secret treaty was concluded between the Ottoman Empire and the German Empire on August 2, 1914. The Ottoman Empire was to enter the war on the side of the Central Powers one day after the German Empire declared war on Russia. -
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WW 1
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National Park System (Progress)
President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the National Park Service, a new federal bureau in the Department of the Interior responsible for protecting the 35 national parks and monuments then managed by the department and those yet to be established. -
U-Boats (WWI)
The U-boat Campaign from 1914 to 1918 was the World War I naval campaign fought by German U-boats against the trade routes of the Allies. It took place largely in the seas around the British Isles and in the Mediterranean. -
Zimmerman Telegram (WWI)
Was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico in the prior event of the United States entering World War I against Germany. -
Sulfur Mustard (WWI)
Mustard gas, or sulfur mustard is a chemical agent that causes severe burning of the skin, eyes and respiratory tract. It can be absorbed into the body through inhalation, ingestion or by coming into contact with the skin or eyes. It was a vesicant that was introduced by Germany in July 1917 prior to the Third Battle of Ypres. -
American Expeditionary Force (WWI)
The American Expeditionary Force was the name applied to the American troops serving in Europe during World War I. When Congress declared War on Germany in 1917, the United States did not have the organization necessary for the deployment of the enormous numbers that would be required. -
Murder of the Romanovs (WWI)
Nicholas led his country into a costly war World War I that Russia did not win. Discontent grew as food became scarce, soldiers became war weary and devastating defeats at the hands of Germany demonstrated the ineffectiveness of Russia under Nicholas. In March 1917, revolution broke out on the streets. A dozen armed men burst into the room and gunned down the imperial family in a hail of gunfire. Those who were still breathing when the smoked cleared were stabbed to death. -
Spanish Flu (WWI)
The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. -
Volstead Act (20s)
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was enacted to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment, which established prohibition in the United States. -
Eleanor Roosevelt (depression)
She married Franklin Roosevelt, her fifth cousin in 1905. By the 1920s, Roosevelt, who raised five children, was involved in Democratic Party politics and numerous social reform organizations. In the White House, she was one of the most active first ladies in history and worked for political, racial and social justice. After President Roosevelt’s death, Eleanor was a delegate to the United Nations and continued to serve as an advocate for a wide range of human rights issues. -
Fall of the Ottoman Empire (WWI)
Collapse of the Ottoman Empire, 1918-1920. The armistice of 31 October 1918 ended the fighting between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies but did not bring stability or peace to the region. ... The Young Turk government led by Enver Pasha had collapsed in the days leading up to the armistice. -
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1920s
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Communism (WWI)
War Communism was the name given to the economic system that existed in Russia from 1918 to 1921. War Communism was introduced by Lenin to combat the economic problems brought on by the civil war in Russia. ... One of the first measures of War Communism was the nationalization of land. -
Hospitality Industry (20s)
Many hotels decided to change the way the rooms looked. Instead of extreme details and pattern on pattern, they decided on the idea that “less is more”. In 1925, the first motel broke through the industry, offering a night’s stay for just $2.50 which made traveling easier to afford. Just a year later, Route 66 was complete, and motels became the go-to place for travelers to rest for a night. The economy was booming. -
First Red Scare (20s)
The First Red Scare was a period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism, due to real and imagined events; real events included those such as the Russian Revolution and anarchist bombings. -
Crime (Gilded Age)
Prohibition opened to door for people to make significant amounts of money delivering alcohol to people because of the enormous demand. Because the demand for alcohol skyrocketed once Prohibition hit, criminals decided to take advantage of the amount of money others would spend in order to get alcohol. “Bootleggers” began to make, transport, and sell alcohol illegally for profit. -
Tea Pot Dome Scandal (20s)
The scandal involved ornery oil tycoons, poker-playing politicians, illegal liquor sales, a murder-suicide, a womanizing president and a bagful of bribery cash delivered on the sly. -
Hitler Youth (WW2)
Adolf Hitler believed that the support of the youth was vital to the future of the third Reich and aimed, through the Hitler Youth program, to produce a generation of loyal supporters of Nazi views. The Hitler Youth (Hitler Jugend) wore uniforms and attended meetings and rallies where they were indoctrinated with Nazi views. -
Scopes Monkey Trial (20s)
The law, which had been passed in March, made it a misdemeanor punishable by fine to “teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”the so-called “Monkey Trial” begins with John Thomas Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of a state law. -
Mein Kampf (WW2)
Hitler began composing his book while sitting in Landsberg prison, convicted of treason for his role in the infamous Beer Hall Putsch which ended in disaster, with some allies deserting and others falling into the hands of the authorities. Hitler was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment,he would serve only nine months. His time in prison was not brutal; he was allowed guests and gifts.He decided to put his leisure time to good use and so began dictating Volume One of his opus magnus. -
Charles Lindbergh (20s)
Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo transatlantic flight in his plane, Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh was invited to tour German aviation facilities by Nazi leader Hermann Göring and was impressed by what he saw.His position on the war, eroded his public support, and some believed that he had Nazi sympathies. -
Darwinism (20s)
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. -
Black Tuesday (depression)
On October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. In the aftermath of Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world spiraled downward into the Great Depression (1929-39), the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world up to that time. -
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The Great Depression
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Abram Smith (20s)
The 4 boys crept up on them, and held them up at gunpoint for money. Supposedly they raped Mary, then beat and shot Claude before driving off. The mob beat and dragged him down the street to a large tree around the courthouse. When the lynchers started to pull him up, Abe tried to pull the noose from his neck. They stabbed him and broke his arms, then hung him. -
Great Depression in Germany (WW2)
The German economy was especially vulnerable since it was built upon foreign capital, mostly loans from America and was very dependent on foreign trade. When those loans suddenly came due and when the world market for German exports dried up, the well oiled German industrial machine quickly ground to a halt. -
Hoovervilles (depression)
During the Great Depression shantytowns appeared across the U.S. as unemployed people were evicted from their homes. The Depression worsened in the 1930s, causing severe hardships for millions of Americans, many looked to the federal government for assistance. When the government failed to provide relief, President Herbert Hoover was blamed for the intolerable economic and social conditions, and the shantytowns that cropped up across the nation, became known as Hoovervilles. -
Glass-Stegall Act (depression)
The Glass–Steagall legislation describes four provisions of the U.S. Banking Act of 1933 separating commercial and investment banking. -
20th Amendment (depression)
The 20th amendment is a simple amendment that sets the dates at which federal (United States) government elected offices end. In also defines who succeeds the president if the president dies. This amendment was ratified on January 23, 1933. -
National Recovery Administration (depression)
The National Industrial Recovery Act created the National Recovery Administration. The purpose of the law and the establishment of National Recovery Administration was to address the crisis in industry by allowing the government, businesses and labor to work together in setting up new, voluntary business codes and rules of fair competition. The National Recovery Administration (NRA) failed to meet many goals and was declared unconstitutional in 1935 by the Supreme Court. -
21st Amendment (depression)
The 21st Amendment to the Constitution was passed and ratified, ending national Prohibition. After the repeal of the 18th Amendment, some states continued Prohibition by maintaining statewide temperance laws. Mississippi, the last dry state in the Union, ended Prohibition in 1966. -
The Dust Bowl (depression)
High winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region. The Dust Bowl intensified the crushing economic impacts of the Great Depression and drove many farming families on a desperate migration in search of work and better living conditions. -
Huey Long (depression)
Huey Long was a powerful Louisiana governor and U.S. senator. A successful lawyer, he rose through the ranks of the Louisiana government to take over the state’s top post in 1928. He entered the U.S. Senate in 1935. Long had launched his own national political organization and was prepared to run for the presidency when he was killed by the son-in-law of a political opponent. -
Social Security Act (depression)
A federal safety net for elderly, unemployed and disadvantaged Americans. The main stipulation of the original Social Security Act was to pay financial benefits to retirees over age 65 based on lifetime payroll tax contributions. The Act also established the Social Security Board, to structure the Social Security Act and figure out the logistics of implementing it. -
Period: to
WW2
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Bataan Death March (WW2)
After the April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II, the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March. -
Joseph Stalin (WW2)
Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. He ruled by terror, and millions of his own citizens died during his brutal reign. Born into poverty, Stalin became involved in revolutionary politics, as well as criminal activities, as a young man. After his death, the Soviets initiated a de-Stalinization process. -
Dunkirk (WW2)
Dunkirk is a small town on the coast of France that was the scene of a massive military campaign during World War II. From May 26 to June 4, 1940, some 338,000 British Expeditionary Force and other Allied troops were evacuated from Dunkirk to England as German forces closed in on them. The massive operation, involving hundreds of naval and civilian vessels, became known as the “Miracle of Dunkirk” and served as a turning point for the Allied war effort. -
Tuskegee Airmen (WW2)
.The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps, a precursor of the U.S. Air Force. Trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, they flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during World War II. Their impressive performance earned them more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and helped encourage the eventual integration of the U.S. armed forces. -
Pearl Harbor (WW2)
Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, and was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the base, where they managed to destroy 20 American naval vessels, 8 enormous battleships, and over 300 airplanes. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians. The day after, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. -
D-Day (WW2)
The Battle of Normandy, lasted from June to August, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Germany’s control.The battle began on June 6, when 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch on the coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe. -
Rosie The Riveter (WW2)
Rosie the Riveter was the star of a campaign aimed at recruiting female workers for defense industries during World War II, and she became perhaps the most iconic image of working women. American women entered the workforce as widespread male enlistment left holes in the industrial labor force. By 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home.
