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Alaska is purchased from Russia
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Completion of Transcontinental Railroad
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John D. Rockefeller starts Standard Oil
John D. Rockefeller built his first oil refinery near Cleveland and later incorporated the Standard Oil Company. Standard Oil became a monopoly in the oil industry, buying rival refineries and developing companies for distributing and marketing his product. Rockefeller was attack by the federal government for having created a virtual monopoly over the oil industry. -
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
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Thomas Edison brings light to the world with the light bulb
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Chinese Exclusion Act
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Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL)
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Sherman Antitrust Act
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Ellis Island opens
Seven hundred immigrants passed through Ellis Island the first day it was opened. The peak years of immigration through Ellis Island were 1900 to 1914. After Ellis Island many immigrants remained in New York, while others migrated further away. -
Carnegie Steel Homestead Strike
A gun battle broke out between the strikers and Pinkerton agents resulted in many deaths and injuries. In order to get strikebreakers past the union eight thousand militia were hired and they arrived on July 12, with their help strikebreakers were able to get the factory running again. The Carnegie Steel Homestead Strike inspired many workers. -
Plessy v Ferguson
Plessy v Ferguson was a case between an African-American train passenger and John H. Ferguson, judge of the criminal District Court for the parish of Orleans. Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for blacks. Plessy v. Ferguson was the first major inquiry into the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
The U.S. declares war on Spain
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Hawaii is annexed
The annexation of Hawaii extended U.S. territory into the Pacific. Some farmers believed that the annexing of Hawaii would remove the threat of tariffs on their sugar. Samuel Dole sent a delegation to Washington wanting annexation, but the new President, Grover Cleveland, opposed. -
Rudyard Kipling published “The White Man’s Burden” in The New York Sun
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The start of the Boxer Rebellion
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Tenement Act
Many Manhattan physicians drew a link between tuberculosis and congestion in the City's tenement houses. The Tenement House Act of was aimed at improving housing conditions in New York’s poorest neighborhoods, later New York served as an example for other states regarding tenement housing. It required tenements to have fire escapes, an outhouse for every 20 residents, and windows in every bedroom to improve access to light and ventilation. -
Pres. McKinley is assassinated and Progressive Theodore Roosevelt becomes President
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The Philippine Insurrection comes to an end
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The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe doctrine declares the U.S. right to intervene in the Western Hem
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Upton Sinclair releases “The Jungle”
Sinclair did seven years of on site research for the book. After its release meat sales went down fifty percent. A silent movie version of “The Jungle,” was released in 1914 but had little impact on the general impact. -
Pure Food & Drug Act and The Meat Inspection Act are passed
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Peak year of immigration through Ellis Island
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Henry Ford produces his first Model T (car)
The Model T, is also known as the Tin Lizzie. Henry Ford’s assembly-line manufacturing made the Model T the first car to be affordable for majority of Americans. More than 15 million Model Ts were built in Detroit and Highland Park, Michigan. -
Creation of the NAACP
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The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist fire killed 145 employees. Nearly all the workers were teenage girls that didn’t speak English, working 12 hours a day, every day. The workers union set up a march on April 5 on New York’s Fifth Avenue to protest the conditions that had led to the fire, in the end the owners of the factory were failed to be charged with manslaughter. -
The Assassination of Austria’s archduke Franz Ferdinand starts WWI
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The Panama Canal is completed and opened for traffic
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The United States enters WWI
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Ratification of the 18th Amendment - Prohibition
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Women got the right to vote
One of the main leaders of the women’s suffrage movement was Susan B. Anthony The fight for women's suffrage was long and tough, beginning in 1848. The 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote.
