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Period: to
U.S. History in the 19th Century
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Election of 1800
"Revolution of 1800," Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams. The election was a realigning election that ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republican Party rule and the eventual demise of the Federalist Party in the First Party System. The election exposed one of the flaws in the original Constitution. Members of the Electoral College were authorized by the original Constitution to vote for two names for President. 12th amdnedment was created. -
John Marshall appointed chief justice
4th Chief Justice of the US whose court opinions helped lay the basis for US constitutional law & made the SCt of the US a coequal branch of govt along with the leg & exec branches. The longest-serving Chief Justice in US Supreme Court history, Marshall dominated the Ct for over 3 decades & played a significant role in the development of the US legal system. Most notably, he reinforced the principle that fed cts are obligated to exercise judicial review. -
Judiciary act of 1801 passed
Reorganized the all levels of the judicial branch. Pres Adams quickly filled as many of the newly created circuit judgeships as possible. The new judges were known as the Midnight Judges because Adams was said to be signing their appointments at midnight prior to Pres Jefferson's inauguration. The famous SCt case of Marbury v. Madison involved one of these "midnight" appointments, although it was an appointment to a judgeship of the District of Columbia, -
2nd Great Awakening begins
a Protestant revival movement during the early 19th century in the US. The movement began around 1790, gained momentum by 1800, and after 1820 membership rose rapidly among Baptist & Methodist congregations whose preachers led the movement. It was past its peak by the 1840s. It has been described as a reaction against skepticism, deism, and rational Christianity, although why those forces became pressing enough at the time to spark revivals is not fully understood. -
Marbury v. Madison decided
The principle of Judicial Review is established -
LA territory purchased from France
was the acquisition by the US of 828,000 square miles of France's claim to the territory of LA. The US paid 50 million francs plus cancellation of debts worth 18 million francs, for a total sum of 15 million dollars (less than 3 cents per acre) for the LA territory. The purchase of the territory of Louisiana took place during the presidency of Jefferson. At the time, the purchase faced domestic opposition because it was thought to be unconstitutional. -
Jefferson reelected
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Burr charged with conspiracy
Burr’s goal was to create an independent nation in the center of NAm and/or the SW and parts of Mexico. Burr’s explanation To take possession of, and farm, 40,000 acres in the TX Territory leased to him by the Spanish. When the expected war with Spain broke out, his accusers said he would fight with his armed "farmers," to seize some lands he could conquer in the war. Pres Jefferson & others had Burr arrested and indicted for treason with no firm evidence put forward. -
Chesapeake-Leopard incident
created uproar among Americans & strident calls for war with GB, but these quickly subsided. Pres Jefferson initially attempted to use this widespread bellicosity to diplomatically threaten the British govt into settling the matter. The US Congress backed away from armed conflict when British envoys showed no contrition whatsoever for the Chesapeake outrage & delivered proclamations reaffirming impressment. Jefferson's political failure to coerce GB led him towards econ warfare: the Embargo act -
1st steamboat launched
Robert Fulton's steamboat the Clermont was undoubtedly the pioneer of practical steamboats. In 1801, Robert Fulton partnered with Robert Livingston to build the Clermont. Livingston had received a monopoly on steam navigation on the rivers of New York State for twenty years, provided that he produced a steam-powered vessel able to travel four miles an hour. -
Embargo act begins
The neutrality of the US was tested during the Napoleonic Wars. Both Britain & France imposed trade restrictions in order to weaken each others' economies. This also had the effect of disrupting US trade & testing the USs' neutrality. As time went on, harassment by the British of US ships increased. This included impressment & seizures of US men & goods. After the Chesapeake Affair, Jefferson was faced with a decision to make regarding the situation. In the end, he chose an economic option. -
James Madison elected president
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Non-Intercourse act passed
This Act lifted all embargoes on US shipping except for those bound for British/French ports. The intent was to damage the economies of the UK & Fr. It was mostly ineffective, & contributed to the coming of the War of 1812. In addition, it seriously damaged the US economy. The Non-Intercourse Act was followed by Macon's Bill Number 2. Despite hurting the econ as a whole, the bill did help US begin to industrialize as no British manufactured goods could be imported & had to be produced domestical -
Tecumseh establishes tribal confederacy
Alarmed by the growing encroachment of whites squatting on Native American lands, the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh calls on all Indians to unite and resist. Tecumseh began a concerted campaign to persuade the Indians of the Old Northwest and Deep South to unite and resist. Together, Tecumseh argued, the various tribes had enough strength to stop the whites from taking further land. Heartened by this message of hope, Indians from as far away as Florida and Minnesota heeded Tecumseh's call. -
Macon's Bill No. 2
forbade British or French warships from entering American waters. It also gave the President the authority to suspend trade with either Britain or France if the other revoked its policy of interdicting American trade. -
Battle of Tippecanoe
A victory for Harrison, the defeat was a serious blow to Tecumseh's efforts to build a confederacy against the US & the loss damaged Tenskwatawa's reputation. Tecumseh remained an active threat until his death at the Battle of the Thames. On the larger stage, the Battle of Tippecanoe further fueled the tensions between Britain & US as many Americans blamed the British for inciting the tribes to violence. These tensions came to a head in Jun 1812 with the outbreak of War of 1812. -
US declares war on Britain
war was declared as a result of numerous disputes between the 2 countries. The British continuously engaged in impressment and forced US citizens to serve in the Royal Navy. The British also attacked the USS Chesapeake and this nearly caused a war 2 year earlier. Additionally, disputes continued with Great Britain over the NW Territories & the border with Canada. Finally, Great Britain's blockade of France during the Napoleonic Wars served as a constant source of conflict with the US. -
Madison reelected president
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Lowell establishes textile factories
The "Lowell Mill Girls" (or "Factory Girls," as they called themselves) were female workers who came to work for the textile corporations in Lowell, MA, during the Industrial Revolution in the US. The women initially recruited by the corporations were daughters of propertied New Eng farmers, between the ages of 15 and 30. By 1840, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, the textile mills had recruited over 8,000 women, who came to make up nearly 75% of the mill workforce. -
Star-Spangled Banner written
19th century, “The Star-Spangled Banner” became one of the nation’s best-loved patriotic songs. It gained special signif during the Civil War, a time when many Americans turned to music to express their feelings for the flag & the ideals & values it represented. By 1890s, the military had adopted the song for ceremonial purposes, requiring it to be played at the raising & lowering of the colors. 1917, both the army & navy designated the song the “national anthem". -
Hartford Convention meets
a secret meeting of Federalist delegates from CT, RI, MA, NH, and VT, at Hartford, CT., inspired by Federalist opposition to Pres Madison’s mercantile policies and the War of 1812. The convention adopted a strong states’ rights position and expressed its grievances in a series of resolutions against military conscription and commercial regulations. News of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812, along with the secrecy of the Hartford proceedings, discredited the convention. -
Treaty of Ghent signed
was signed by British and American representatives at Ghent, Belgium, ending the War of 1812. By terms of the treaty, all conquered territory was to be returned, and commissions were planned to settle the boundary of the US and Canada. News of the treaty took almost two months to cross the Atlantic, and British forces were not informed of the end of hostilities in time to end their drive against the mouth of the Mississippi River. -
Battle of New Orleans
7,500 British soldiers marched against 4,500 U.S. troops led by General Andrew Jackson. Jackson defeated the British just 30 minutes, halting their plans to attack New Orleans and establishing himself as a national military hero. The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war, had been signed two weeks before the battle but the news had not yet crossed the Atlantic. -
2nd Bank of US chartered
Served as the nation's federally authorized central bank during its 20-year charter from Feb1817 - Jan 1836.
A private corporation with public duties, the central bank handled all fiscal transactions for the US Govt, and was accountable to Congress and the US Treasury. 20% of its capital was owned by the fed govt, the Bank's single largest stockholder 4,000 private investors held 80% of the Bank's capital, including 1,000 Europeans. -
James Monroe elected president
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American Colonization Society formed
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Jackson invades FL
Back when Britain controlled Florida, the British often incited Seminoles against American settlers who were migrating south into Seminole territory. These old conflicts, combined with the safe-haven Seminoles provided black slaves, caused the U.S. army to attack the tribe in the First Seminole War (1817-1818), which took place in Florida and southern Georgia. Forces under Gen. Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish Florida, attacked several key locations, and pushed the Seminoles farther south into Flo -
Dartmouth College v. Woodward
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McCulloch v MD
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MO Compromise passed
Act passed by the U.S. Congress admitting Missouri to the Union as the 24th state. After the territory requested statehood without slavery restrictions, Northern congressmen tried unsuccessfully to attach amendments restricting further slaveholding. When Maine (originally part of Massachusetts) requested statehood, a compromise led by Henry Clay allowed Missouri admission as a slave state and Maine as a free state, with slavery prohibited from then on in territories north of Missouri's southern. -
Monroe reelected president
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Austin establishes settlement
the first legal settlement of North American families in Mexican-owned Texas. Led by the Empressario, Austin, an initial grant for 300 families--the "Old 300"--in 1821 opened up Texas to a flood of American immigrants, as many as 30,000 by the time of the TX Revolution in 1835. This colonial period that brought Anglo & African settlers from the US into contact with the governmental and ranching traditions of Spain and Mexico helped set the course for much of Texas' history in the 19th century. -
Denmark Vesey conspiracy
After one loyal slave told his master about a plot to seize the city of Charlestown, South Carolina and kill all the whites, local authorities exposed the most comprehensive slave plot in the history of the United States. More than 1,000 free and enslaved blacks intended to be a part of this uprising. Denmark Vesey, a free black carpenter and Methodist leader, used his position to organize blacks, who were especially angry about the recent decision to suppress their African Church. -
Catherine Beecher founds Hartford Female Seminary
making it one of the 1st major educational institutions for women in the US. By 1826 it had enrolled nearly 100 students and implemented radical programs such as PE courses for women. Beecher sought the aid of Mary Lyon in the development of the seminary. The Hartford Female Seminary closed towards the later half of the 19th century. -
Monroe Doctrine proclaimed
President Monroe proclaims a new U.S. foreign policy initiative that becomes known as the "Monroe Doctrine." Primarily the work of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the Monroe Doctrine forbade European interference in the American hemisphere but also asserted U.S. neutrality in regard to future European conflicts. -
Gibbons v. Ogden
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John Quincy Adams elected president
after the election was decided by the House of Reps in what was termed the Corrupt Bargain. The previous yrs had seen a 1-party govt in the US, as the Fed Party dissolved, leaving only the Dem-Rep Party as a nat'l political entity. In this election, the Dem-Rep Party splintered as 4 separate candidates sought the presidency. This process did not yet lead to formal party organization, but later, Jackson's faction would evolve into Dem Party, Adams & Clay's faction would be the Natl Rep and Whigs -
New Harmony community founded
Robert Owen created the utopian society in Indiana. New Harmony became known as a center for advances in education and scientific research. New Harmony's residents established the first free library, a civic drama club, and a public school system open to men and women. -
Erie Canal is constructed
connecting the Great Lakes with the Atl O. via the Hudson R. Gov DeWitt Clinton of NY, the driving force behind the project, led the opening ceremonies and rode the canal boat Seneca Chief from Buffalo to NY City. The effect of the canal was immediate and dramatic. Settlers poured into western New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Goods were transported at one-tenth the previous fee in less than half the previous time. -
American Society for the Promotion of Temperance founded
The formation of the American Temperance Society marked the beginning of the first formal national temperance movement in the US. The American Temperance Society, like most other temperance groups at the time, called for abstention from drinking distilled spirits but not from beer and wine. This reflected the myth that distilled spirits were more alcoholic than the other beverages. -
James Fenimore Cooper publishes The Last of the Mohicans
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William Morgan's disappearance
a resident of Batavia, NY, whose disappearance & presumed murder ignited a powerful movement against the Freemasons, a fraternal society that had become influential in the US. After Morgan announced his intention to publish a book exposing Freemasonry's secrets, he was arrested, allegedly kidnapped by Masons, and believed murdered. The allegations sparked a public outcry & inspired Thurlow Weed, a NY politician, to muster discontent & found the new Anti-Masonic Party. -
Jackson is elected president
Andrew Jackson, considered the father of the modern Presidency, significantly contributed to the expansion of that office. He was considered the first popularly elected President, and, throughout his Presidency, acted his role as a populist. -
Calhoun's South Carolina's Exposition and Protest
was written by Calhoun, then vpres under JQ Adams & later under Jackson. Calhoun did not formally state his authorship at the time, though it was known. The document was a protest against the Tariff of 1828, also known as the Tariff of Abominations. The document stated that if the tariff was not repealed, South Carolina would secede. It stated also Calhoun's Doctrine of nullification, i.e., the idea that a state has the right to reject federal law, first introduced by Jefferson & Madison. -
David Walker publishes Appeal to the Colored Citizens
David Walker's Appeal, arguably the most radical of all anti-slavery documents, caused a great stir when it was published in September of 1829 with its call for slaves to revolt against their masters. The goal of the Appeal was to instill pride in its black readers and give hope that change would someday come. It spoke out against colonization, a popular movement that sought to move free blacks to a colony in Africa. America, Walker believed, belonged to all who helped build it. -
Webster-Hayne Debate
between Sen Daniel Webster of MA & Sen Robert Y. Hayne of SC on the topic of protectionist tariffs. The heated speeches between Webster & Hayne themselves were unplanned, & stemmed from debate over a resolution by CT Sen Samuel A. Foot calling for the temporary suspension of further land surveying until land already on the market was sold (this would effectively stop the introduction of new lands onto the market). -
Joseph Smith publishes the Book of Mormon
The coming forth of the Book of Mormon, foretold by ancient prophets, began with an angelic visitation in 1823 to 17-yr-old Joseph Smith. 7 years later, in 1830, this scriptural canon of the Latter-day Saints was published for the world. The Prophet Joseph received these ancient records written in "reformed Egyptian" from the heavenly messenger Moroni & translated them by "the gift & power of God" into the Book of Mormon. The sacred writings chronicle God's dealings with his ppl in W hemisphere. -
Indian Removal Act
The act authorized him to negotiate with the Native Americans in the Southern United States for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their homelands. this leads to the Trail of Tears. -
Baltimore and Ohio 1st US railroad
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1st national craft union
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Immigration from southern Ireland
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William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing the Liberator
In the very first issue of his anti-slavery newspaper, the Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison stated, "I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. . . . I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD." And Garrison was heard. For more than three decades, from the first issue of his weekly paper in 1831, until after the end of the Civil War in 1865 when the last issue was published, Garrison spoke out eloque -
Cherokee Nation v. GA
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Nat Turner's slave rebellion
Turner led a rebellion in Southhampton County, VA. A religious leader and self-styled Baptist minister, Turner & a group of followers killed some 60 white men, women, and children on the night of August 21. Turner and 16 of his conspirators were captured and executed, but the incident continued to haunt Southern whites. -
Bank War
The Bank War refers to the political struggle that developed over the issue of rechartering the 2nd Bank of the US during the Andrew Jackson administration. In the presidential campaigns of 1832, the BUS served as the central issue in mobilizing the opposing Jacksonian Democrats and National Repub. Jackson & Biddle personified the positions on each side.Jacksonians successfully concealed the incompatibility of their “hard money the end, in the end, Jackson vetoes bill to recharter 2nd BUS. -
Jackson reelected as president
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Nullification Crisis
Conflict between SC & the fedl govt over a pair of bills - tariff acts. In Nov 1832, SC legislature expressed its outrage at the high fed 1828 Tariff and 1832 Tariff because they believed the burden of the tariffs (which supported Northern manufactures) fell disproportionately on the South with its agrarian economy. SC passed an "ordinance of nullification" declaring that the tariff was unconstitutional and that they would not obey it. -
American Antislavery society founded
As the main activist arm of the Abolition Movement, the society was founded in 1833 under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison. By 1840 its auxiliary societies numbered 2,000, with a total membership ranging from 150,000 to 200,000. The societies sponsored meetings, adopted resolutions, signed antislavery petitions to be sent to Congress, published journals and enlisted subscriptions, printed and distributed propaganda in vast quantities, and sent out agents and lecturers. -
McCormick patents mechanical reaper
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Seminole War
was a conflict from 1835 -1842 in Florida between various groups of Native Americans collectively known as Seminoles and the US, part of a series of conflicts called the Seminole Wars. -
TX declares independence from Mexico
Mar 1 delegates from the seventeen Mexican municipalities of TX and the settlement of Pecan Pt met at Washington-on-the-Brazos to consider independence from Mexico. George C. Childress presented a resolution calling for independence, and the chairman of the convention appointed Childress to head a committee of 5 to draft a declaration of independence. In the early morning hours of Mar 2, the convention voted unanimously to accept the resolution. After 58 members signed the document, -
Gag rule
In American politics the term "gag rule" refers to a series of procedural rules adopted by Congress in the 1830s and 1840s to prevent the submission of antislavery petitions. The gag rule emerged as one of the principal tools employed by the Jacksonian Democrats to silence abolitionist agitation and maintain a political coalition with slaveholders. -
Mount Holyoke College founded
Although Oberlin was the 1st college to admit women in 1833, Mount Holyoke is vert important to womens' edu. Mount Holyoke's founder, Mary Lyon, is considered by many scholars to be an innovator in the area of women's education. Her establishment of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was part of a larger movement to create institutions of higher education for young women during the early half of the 19th century. -
Specie Circular
It required payment for government land to be in gold and silver. The Act was a reaction to the growing concerns about excessive speculations of land after the Indian removal, which was mostly done with soft currency. The sale of public lands increased five times between 1834 and 1836. Speculators paid for these purchases with depreciating paper money. Because the order was one of Jackson's last acts in office. -
Martin Van Buren is elected president
Van Buren devoted his Inaugural Address to a discourse upon the American experiment as an example to the rest of the world. The country was prosperous, but less than three months later the panic of 1837 punctured the prosperity. -
Charles River Bridge case
Heard by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. The case settled a dispute over the constitutional clause regarding obligation of contract. The Court ultimately sided with Warren Bridge. This decision was received with mixed opinions, and had some impact on the remainder of Taney's tenure as Chief Justice. -
Horace Mann 1st MA board of Ed
Mann did many things, but his main legacy was to convince people that public education was a public good that should be publicly funded. As a result, Massachusetts had the first system of public schools in the country. -
Murder of abolitionist Lovejoy
American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor and abolitionist. He was murdered by pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois during their attack on his warehouse to destroy his press and abolitionist materials. -
William Henry Harrison is elected president
Thereafter Harrison returned to civilian life; the Whigs, in need of a national hero, nominated him for President in 1840. He won by a majority of less than 150,000, but swept the Electoral College, 234 to 60. But before he had been in office a month, he caught a cold that developed into pneumonia. On April 4, 1841, he died -- the first President to die in office -- and with him died the Whig program. -
Brook Farm founded
Brook Farm, a celebrated nineteenth-century New England utopian community, was founded by Unitarian minister George Ripley and other progressive, Transcendentalist Unitarians, to be, in Ripley's words, a new Jerusalem, the "city of God, anew." From its founding in 1841 until it went bankrupt in 1847, Brook Farm influenced many of the social reform movements of its day: abolitionism, associationalism, the workingmen's movement, and the women's rights movement. It represented both a test of Transc -
Harrison dies and John Tyler becomes president
Dubbed "His Accidency" by his detractors, John Tyler was the first VP to be elevated to the office of Pres by the death of Harrison. Tyler even delivered an Inaugural Address, but it seemed full of good Whig doctrine. Whigs, optimistic that Tyler would accept their program, soon were disillusioned. All the Whigs expelled Tyler from their party. -
Dorr Rebellion
a short-lived armed insurrection in the U.S. state of Rhode Island led by Thomas Wilson Dorr, who was agitating for changes to the state's electoral system.The new constitution greatly liberalized voting requirements by extending suffrage to any free man, regardless of race, who could pay a poll tax of $1. -
Commonwealth v. Hunt
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Webster-Ashburton Treaty
a treaty resolving several border issues between the US & the British NAm colonies. It resolved the Aroostook War, a nonviolent dispute over the location of the Maine–New Brunswick border. It established the border between Lake Superior & the Lake of the Woods, originally defined in the Treaty of Paris (1783), reaffirmed the location of the border (at the 49th parallel) in the westward frontier up to the Rocky Mountains defined in the Treaty of 1818, defined seven crime to extradition -
Samuel F.B. Morse sends 1st telegraph
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James Polk elected president
Often referred to as the first "dark horse" President, James K. Polk was the last of the Jacksonians to sit in the White House, and the last strong President until the Civil War. "Who is James K. Polk?" Whigs jeered. Democrats replied Polk was the candidate who stood for expansion. He linked the Texas issue, popular in the South, with the Oregon question, attractive to the North. Polk also favored acquiring California. -
Edgar Allen Poe publishes the Raven
Poe's dark and macabre work reflected his own tumultuous and difficult life. His work, often portraying motiveless crimes and intolerable guilt that induces growing mania in his characters, was a significant influence on such European writers as Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme, and even Dostoyevsky. -
Irish potato famine begins
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Native American Party formed
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Modern baseball established
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Fredrick Douglass publishes autobiography
Despite apprehensions that the information might endanger his freedom, Douglass published his autobiography, The year was 1845. Three years later, after a speaking tour of England, Ireland, and Scotland, Douglass published the first issue of the North Star, a four-page weekly, out of Rochester, New York. -
TX admitted into Union
he citizens of the independent Republic of Texas elected Sam Houston president but also endorsed the entrance of Texas into the Union. The likelihood of Texas joining the Union as a slave state delayed any formal action by the U.S. Congress for more than a decade. In 1844, Congress finally agreed to annex the territory of Texas. -
US declares war on Mexico
In November, Polk sent the diplomat Slidell to Mexico to seek boundary adjustments in return for the US govt's settlement of the claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico & also to make an offer to purchase CA & NM. After the mission failed, the U.S. army under Gen. Taylor advanced to the mouth of the Rio Grande, the river that the state of TX claimed as its southern boundary.
Mexico, claiming that the boundary was the Nueces R to the northeast of the Rio Grande. -
Rotary press invented
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Wilmot Proviso introduced
The Wilmot Proviso was not drafted by David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, but was the workmanship of Jacob Brinkerhoff of Ohio who as a Free Soiler was unlikely to be recognised by the Speaker of the House. This document would have banned slavery in any territory the USA acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or any territory in the Mexican Cession. David Wilmot, a congressman from Pennsylvania, introduced the Proviso to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846. -
John Deere begins making steel plow
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Mormons founded Salt Lake City
wo years later, Smith's successor, Brigham Young, led an exodus of persecuted Mormons from Nauvoo along the western wagon trails in search of a sanctuary in "a place on this earth that nobody else wants." The expedition, more than 10,000 pioneers strong, set up camp in present-day western Iowa while Young led a vanguard company across the Rocky Mountains to investigate Utah's Great Salt Lake Valley, an arid and isolated spot devoid of human presence. -
CA gold rush begins
James Marshall had a work crew camped on the American River at Coloma near Sacramento. The crew was building a saw mill for John Sutter. On the cold, clear morning of January 24, Marshall found a few tiny gold nuggets. Thus began one of the largest human migrations in history as a half-million people from around the world descended upon California in search of instant wealth. -
The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo settles war
it is the oldest treaty still in force between the United States and Mexico. As a result of the treaty, the United States acquired more than 500,000 square miles of valuable territory and emerged as a world power in the late nineteenth century. -
Failed German revolution
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Oneida community founded
was a religious & social society founded in Oneida, NY, by John Humphrey Noyes & his followers. In the beginning, most of them were Vermonters, almost all were New Englanders.The Community was founded on Noyes' theology of Perfectionism, a form of Christianity with 2 basic values; self-perfection & communalism. These ideals were translated into everyday life through shared property & work. Noyes' solution was a society where the interest of 1 member became the interest of all. -
Seneca Falls Convention held
At the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y., a woman's rights convention--the 1st ever held in US--convenes with almost 200 women in attendance. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott & Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 2 abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. As women, Mott & Stanton were barred from the convention floor, & the common indignation that this aroused in both of them was the impetus for their founding of the women's rights movement. -
Zachary Taylor is elected president
Northerners and Southerners disputed sharply whether the territories wrested from Mexico should be opened to slavery, and some Southerners even threatened secession. Standing firm, Zachary Taylor was prepared to hold the Union together by armed force rather than by compromise. After participating in ceremonies at the Washington Monument on a blistering July 4, Taylor fell ill; within five days he was dead. -
Free Soil Party formed
The Free Soil Party centered itself upon the passing of the Wilmot Proviso. The party generally became an anti-slavery party pushing for the banning of slavery in both new territories and old. The Party was officially formed in Buffalo, New York in 1848 and consisted of anti-slavery whigs, radical democrats, and members of the liberty party. The Free Soil Party, in essence, separated and isolated itself around a common goal: to abolish slavery. -
Hawthorne publishes Scarlet Letter
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Taylor dies and Milard Filmore becomes president
Fillmore presided over the Senate during the months of nerve-wracking debates over the Compromise of 1850. He made no public comment on the merits of the compromise proposals, but a few days before President Taylor's death, he intimated to him that if there should be a tie vote on Henry Clay's bill, he would vote in favor of it. -
Compromise of 1850 enacted
The Compromise of 1850 was a series of five bills that were intended to stave off sectional strife. Its goal was to deal with the spread of slavery to territories in order to keep northern and southern interests in balance. -
I.M. Singer and Company founded
One of the first modern corporations. The company was incorporated in 1863 as the Singer Manufacturing Company, taking over the business of I.M. Singer & Company, which had been formed to market the sewing machine patented by Singer in 1851. Singer’s original design, which was the first practical sewing machine for general domestic use, incorporated the basic eye-pointed needle and lock stitch developed by Elias B. Howe, who won a patent-infringement suit against Singer in 1854. -
Melville publishes Moby Dick
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Know-Nothings Party formed
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Franklin Pierce is elected president
Franklin Pierce became President at a time of apparent tranquility. The United States, by virtue of the Compromise of 1850, seemed to have weathered its sectional storm. By pursuing the recommendations of southern advisers, Pierce--a New Englander--hoped to prevent still another outbreak of that storm. But his policies, far from preserving calm, hastened the disruption of the Union. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin published
Across the nation people discussed the novel and debated the most pressing sociopolitical issue dramatized in its narrative—slavery. Because Uncle Tom's Cabin so polarized the abolitionist and anti-abolitionist debate, some claim that it is one of the causes of the Civil War. Indeed, when President Lincoln received its author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, at the White House in 1862, legend has it he exclaimed, "So this is the little lady who made this big war?" -
Gadsden Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase, or Treaty, was an agreement between the United States and Mexico, finalized in 1854, in which the United States agreed to pay Mexico $10 million for a 29,670 square mile portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico. Gadsden’s Purchase provided the land necessary for a southern transcontinental railroad and attempted to resolve conflicts that lingered after the Mexican-American War. -
Thoreau publishes Walden
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Kansas-Nebraska Act passed
In January 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas introduced a bill that divided the land west of Missouri into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. He argued for popular sovereignty, which would allow the settlers of the new territories to decide if slavery would be legal there. Antislavery supporters were outraged because, under the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, slavery would have been outlawed in both territories. -
Republican Party formed
In Ripon, Wisconsin, former members of the Whig Party meet to establish a new party to oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories. The Republicans rapidly gained supporters in the North, and in 1856 their first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, won 11 of the 16 Northern states. By 1860, the majority of the Southern slave states were publicly threatening secession if the Republicans won the presidency. -
1st Urban tenement built in NYC
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Whitman publishes Leaves of Grass
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Bleeding Kansas
KS territory was the site of much violence over whether the territory would be free or slave. The KS-NE Act allowed the territory of Kansas to decide for itself whether it would be free or slave, a situation known as popular sovereignty. With the passage of the act, thousands of pro- and anti-slavery supporters flooded the state. Violent clashes soon occurred, especially once "border ruffians" crossed over from the South to sway the vote to the pro-slavery side. -
Brooks canes Sumner
The inspiration for this clash came three days earlier when Senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts antislavery Republican, addressed the Senate on the explosive issue of whether Kansas should be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state. In his "Crime Against Kansas" speech, Sumner identified two Democratic senators as the principal culprits in this crime—Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina. Representative Preston Brooks was Butler's South Carolina kin -
James Buchanan is elected president
Presiding over a rapidly dividing Nation, Buchanan grasped inadequately the political realities of the time. Relying on constitutional doctrines to close the widening rift over slavery, he failed to understand that the North would not accept constitutional arguments which favored the South. Nor could he realize how sectionalism had realigned political parties: the Democrats split; the Whigs were destroyed, giving rise to the Republicans. -
S.Ct handes down Dred Scott Decision
In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permiting slavery in all of the country's territories. -
Comstock lode discovered
The first major silver discovery in the United States and virtually ended the California Gold Rush. -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of formal political debates between the challenger, Abraham Lincoln, and the incumbent, Stephen A. Douglas, in a campaign for one of Illinois' two United States Senate seats. Although Lincoln lost the election, these debates launched him into national prominence which eventually led to his election as President of the United States. -
John Brown raids Harpers Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. -
Democractic Party splits
The northern Democrats supported Douglas for President in 1860, but the southern Democrats withheld support for Douglas. The South demanded that Douglas repudiate the Freeport Doctrine and support a federal slave law. The Douglas supporters pointed out that to do that would drive the northern Democrats into the Republican Party. -
Lincoln is elected president
As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy. -
SC secedes from Union
The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 was the final straw for many southerners. In all 11 states seceded from the Union. Four of these (Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee) did not secede until after the Battle of Fort Sumter that occurred on April 12, 1861. -
Confederate States of America is formed
0 During the American Civil War, the Confederate States of America consisted of the governments of 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860-61, carrying on all the affairs of a separate government and conducting a major war until defeated in the spring of 1865. Convinced that their way of life, based on slavery, was irretrievably threatened by the election of President Lincoln. -
Fort Sumter is attacked
The attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 marked the beginning of the American Civil War. With the booming of cannons over the harbor in Charleston, South Carolina, the secession crisis gripping the country escalated into a shooting war. The shelling of the fort was the culmination of a simmering conflict in which a small garrison of Union troops in South Carolina found themselves isolated when the state seceded from the Union. -
1st battle of Bull Run
This was the first major land battle of the armies in Virginia. On July 16, 1861, the untried Union army under Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell marched from Washington against the Confederate army, which was drawn up behind Bull Run beyond Centreville. -
Jefferson Davis elected president of Confederacy
On this day in 1861, Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America. He ran without opposition, and the election simply confirmed the decision that had been made by the Confederate Congress earlier in the year. -
Trent affair
incident during the American Civil War involving the doctrine of freedom of the seas, which nearly precipitated war between Great Britain and the United States. On Nov. 8, 1861, Captain Charles Wilkes, commanding the Union frigate San Jacinto, seized from the neutral British ship Trent two Confederate commissioners, James Murray Mason and John Slidell, who were seeking the support of England and France for the cause of the Confederacy. -
Battle of Shiloh
On the morning of April 6, 1862, 40,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston poured out of the nearby woods and struck a line of Union soldiers occupying ground near Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. -
Union forces capture New Orleans
Union troops officially take possession of New Orleans, completing the occupation that had begun four days earlier.
The capture of this vital southern city was a huge blow to the Confederacy. Southern military strategists planned for a Union attack down the Mississippi, not from the Gulf of Mexico. -
Union Pacific Railroad chartered
the Pacific Railroad Act chartered the Central Pacific & the Union Pacific Railroad Companies, & tasked them with building a transcontinental railroad that would link the US from east to west. Over the next 7 years, the two companies would race toward each other from Sacramento, CA on the one side and Omaha, NE on the other, struggling against great risks before they met at Promontory, UT, on 5/10/1869 -
2nd Battle of Bull Run
The second battle of Bull Run (or second battle of Manassas) was also a victory for the Confederates. In July, 1862, the Union Army of Virginia under Gen. John Pope threatened the town of Gordonsville, a railroad junction between Richmond and the Shenandoah valley. -
Battle of Antietam
The Army of the Potomac, under the command of George McClellan, mounted a series of powerful assaults against Robert E. Lee’s forces near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862. -
Homestead Act and Morrill Land Grant Act passed
The Homestead Act made millions of acres of government-held land in the West available for purchase at very low cost. The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act provided government grants for state agricultural colleges in each state. These land acts were instrumental in populating the Great Plains. -
Emancipation Proclamation issued
In September of 1862, after the Union's victory at Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary decree stating that, unless the rebellious states returned to the Union by January 1, freedom would be granted to slaves within those states. The proclamation allowed black soldiers to fight for the Union -- soldiers that were desperately needed. It also tied the issue of slavery directly to the war. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (July 1–July 3, 1863), was the largest battle of the American Civil War as well as the largest battle ever fought in North America, involving around 85,000 men in the Union’s Army of the Potomac under Major General George Gordon Meade and approximately 75,000 in the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert Edward Lee. -
Vicksburg surrenders
After weeks of immediate siege at the end of a yearlong campaign, Vicksburg, MS, surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant. Formal surrender was consummated on July 4, and on July 8 the besieged city of Port Hudson also surrendered, giving the Union complete control of the Mississippi River. This move cut off the western Confederacy from the rest of the South. -
Anitdraft riots break out
On Saturday, July 11, 1863, the first lottery of the conscription law was held. For twenty-four hours the city remained quiet. On Monday, July 13, 1863, between 6 and 7 A.M., the five days of mayhem and bloodshed that would be known as the Civil War Draft Riots began. -
LA, AR, TN readmitted to Union under Lincoln's plan
By the end of the war it had been tried, not too successfully, in Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Virginia. Congress, however, refused to seat the Senators and Representatives elected from those states, and by the time of Lincoln's assassination the President and Congress were at a stalemate. -
Wade-Davis Bill passed
Lincoln's plan aroused the sharp opposition of the radicals in Congress, who believed it would simply restore to power the old planter aristocracy. They passed (July, 1864) the Wade-Davis Bill, which required 50% of a state's male voters to take an "ironclad" oath that they had never voluntarily supported the Confederacy. -
Sherman captures Atlanta
Sherman had taken the Deep South's major manufacturing center and railroad hub, a huge loss for the Confederacy. Unwilling to attack Atlanta's strong defenses, U.S. forces swept west and south around the city. At Jonesboro they cut the last railroad supplying Atlanta, forcing General John Bell Hood's Confederates to abandon the city. -
Lincoln is reelected President
Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion. -
Sand Creek Massacre
With stories of Indian threats sweeping the Territory in 1864, Colonel Chivington left Denver in November to join his troops near Booneville. On the 28th his command arrived at Fort Lyon, which they departed from later that night heading north toward the Cheyenne and Arapaho camps at Sand Creek. -
Lee surrenders at Appomattox Courthouse
Conf Gen Lee surrendered to Union Gen Grant in the front parlor of Wilmer McLean's home in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War . -
Lincoln assassinated; Andrew Johnson becomes president
April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth. With the Assassination of Lincoln, the Presidency fell upon an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views. Although an honest and honorable man, Andrew Johnson was one of the most unfortunate of Presidents. Arrayed against him were the Radical Republicans in Congress, brilliantly led and ruthless in their tactics. Johnson was no match for them. -
Freeedmen's Bureau established
On this day in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill creating the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Known as the Freedmen's Bureau, this federal agency oversaw the difficult transition of African Americans from slavery to freedom. -
Black codes enacted
Laws enacted in the states of the former Confederacy after the American Civil War, in 1865 and 1866; the laws were designed to replace the social controls of slavery that had been removed by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and were thus intended to assure continuance of white supremacy. -
13th amendment is ratified
13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, officially ending the institution of slavery, is ratified. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." With these words, the single greatest change wrought by the Civil War was officially noted in the Constitution. -
KKK formed in South
Was formed in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865. Originally founded as a social club for former Confederate soldiers, the Klan evolved into a terrorist organization. It would be responsible for thousands of deaths, and would help to weaken the political power of Southern blacks and Republicans. -
Long drives launch cattle bonanza
large herds of longhorn cattle roamed freely throughout TX. High meat prices in eastern cities attracted a variety of entrepreneurs & prompted cattlemen to search for a way to bring them to market. The building of the first transcontinental rxr offered a solution by providing an inexpensive mode of transporting cattle to large urban markets. Beginning in 1866, cowboys drove herds of cattle, numbering on average 2500 hundred head, overland to railhheads on the northern Plains. -
Strike against Union Pacific
On Jun 25, Chinese workers left their grading work along a 2 mile stretch on the eastern Sierra slope & went back to their camp. The workers demanded $40/month instead of $35. They requested a reduction in hours. A workday on the open Sierra lasted from dawn till dusk; the Chinese laborers wanted to work no more than 10 hours daily. They also asked for shorter shifts in the cramped, dangerous tunnels. -
William H. Sylvis founed NLU
The first national labor federation in the United States. Founded in 1866 and dissolved in 1873, it paved the way for other organizations, such as the Knights of Labor and the AFL (American Federation of Labor). -
Military Reconstruction Act
Most Southern states refused to ratify 14th amendment and Radical Republicans such as Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, Benjamin Wade, Henry Winter Davies and Benjamin Butler urged the passing of further legislation to impose these measures on the former Confederacy. Congress passed the 1st Reconstruction Act. The South was now divided into 5 military districts, each under a maj gen. New elections were to be held in each state with freed male slaves being being allowed to vote. -
US purchases AK
The purchase of Alaska in 1867 marked the end of Russian efforts to expand trade and settlements to the Pacific coast of North America, and became an important step in the United States rise as a great power in the Asia-Pacific region. -
"Indian Territory" established
Peace Commission was an attempt to bring peace to western lands by creating reservations for Indian tribes, enabling white settlers to claim former Indian territories and railroads to continue to lay tracks toward the Pacific, thus fulfilling the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. the U.S. govt signed treaties with the Cheyennes, Plains Apaches, Comanches, Arapahos, and Kiowas. 3 major reservations were established in present-day SD, OK, and AZ. -
National Grange founded
fraternal organization in the US which encourages families to band together to promote the economic & political well-being of the community & agriculture. The Grange is the oldest US agricultural advocacy group with a national scope. Major accomplishments credited to Grange advocacy include passage of the Granger Laws and the establishment of rural free mail delivery. -
Johnson impeached, but not convicted
In March 1867, the Radicals effected their own plan of Reconstruction, again placing southern states under military rule. They passed laws placing restrictions upon the President. When Johnson allegedly violated one of these, the Tenure of Office Act, by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the House voted eleven articles of impeachment against him. He was tried by the Senate in the spring of 1868 and acquitted by one vote. -
14th Amendment is ratified
The amendment grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. " which included former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War. The amendment had been rejected by most Southern states but was ratified by the required three-fourths of the states. Known as the "Reconstruction Amendment," it forbids any state to deny any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law" or to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law." -
Ulysses S. Grant elected president
Late in the administration of Andrew Johnson, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant quarreled with the President and aligned himself with the Radical Republicans. He was, as the symbol of Union victory during the Civil War, their logical candidate for President in 1868 -
Black Kettle and Cheyenne killed by US
It was Black Kettle's village, well within the boundaries of the Cheyenne reservation and with a white flag flying above the chief's own tipi. Nonetheless, nearly 4 yrs to the day after Sand Creek, Custer's troops charged, and this time Black Kettle could not escape. -
Transcontinental railroad completed
On this day in 1869, 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. No longer would western-bound travelers need to take the long and dangerous journey by wagon train, and the West would surely lose some of its wild charm with the new connection to the civilized East. -
Princeton vs Rutgers in 1st intercollegiate FB game
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Knights of Labor founded
The Knights of Labor were founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Uriah Stevens and six other taylors in 1869. They began initially as a secret society structured after Free Masonry with the goal of promoting the organization of working people. The Knights rose to national prominence in the 1880's under the leadership of Terence V. Powerly, -
Start of Jim Crow laws
A Virginia law made it illegal for black and white children to attend the same schools. -
Enforcement acts passed
Designed to enforce the 15th Amendment throughout the South during the elections. The elections of 1870 were plagued by violence throughout the South exerted primarily by members and sympathizers of the Ku Klux Klan. Their tactics of lynching, bombing, and otherwise exerting violence on the black community were aimed at keeping African-Americans from voting. -
15th amendment is passed
granting African-American men the right to vote, is formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment reads, "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." One day after it was adopted, Thomas Peterson-Mundy of Perth Amboy, NJ, became the first African American to vote under the authority of the 15th Amendment -
Women vote in WY
The first American women to gain the vote were residents of Wyoming Territory. Elizabeth Cady Stanton visited “the land of freedom” in 1871. When Wyoming was granted statehood in 1890, the women’s suffrage clause remained state law. -
John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil
Became one of the world’s wealthiest men and a major philanthropist. Born into modest circumstances in upstate New York, he entered the then-fledgling oil business in 1863 by investing in a Cleveland, Ohio, refinery. In 1870, he established Standard Oil, which by the early 1880s controlled some 90 percent of U.S. refineries and pipelines. -
Indian Appropriation Act
Indian policy began to place a growing emphasis on erasing a distinctive American Indian identity. To weaken the authority of tribal leaders, Congress passed the Indian Appropriation Act, which ended the practice of treating tribes as independent, sovereign nations. The Carlisle Indian School, founded in 1879, was designed to replace American Indian culture with white American. Between 1879 and 1918, 10,000 students from all over the nation passed through the Pennsylvania school. -
Alabama claims settled
U.S. maritime grievances against Britain in the Civil War. Although Britain had declared official neutrality in the war, it allowed the Confederate cruiser Alabama to be constructed in England. US ambassador Charles Adams demanded the British take responsibility for these damages, & he advocated arbitration to settle the matter. May 1871 the parties signed the Treaty of Washington, which established certain wartime obligations oof neutrals. The tribunal also held Britain liable for losses. -
Great Chicago Fire
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Granger Laws
The Patrons of Husbandry, or the Grange, was founded in 1867 to advance methods of agriculture, as well as to promote the social and economic needs of farmers in the United States. At both the state and national levels, Grangers gave their support to reform-minded groups such as the Greenback Party, the Populist Party, and, eventually, the Progressives. States passed “Granger laws” to establish standard freight rates and railroad passenger fares. -
Yellowstone National Park Act
The Yellowstone National Park Act in 1872 set an area of the Wyoming and Montana territories aside as “the people’s pleasuring ground.” The National Park Service was created in 1916 to oversee the then 35 parks and monuments set aside. The National Park System of the United States now comprises more than 400 areas covering more than 84 million acres in 49 states. -
Montgomery Ward distributes 1st catalog
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Credit Mobilier scandal exposed
On the strength of renewed profits and a declared dividend, Credit Mobilier boomed. Congressman Oakes Ames, representing company interests on Capitol Hill, soon found himself overwhelmed with legislators demanding a piece of the action. He distributed stock to two senators and nine representatives in 1867. -
Grant reelected president
During his campaign for re-election in 1872, Grant was attacked by Liberal Republican reformers. He called them "narrow-headed men," their eyes so close together that "they can look out of the same gimlet hole without winking." The General's friends in the Republican Party came to be known proudly as "the Old Guard." -
Boss Tweed convicted of corruption
The NY Times ran a series of articles exposing Tweed in July 1871, and on 16 December 1871 he was arrested. -
Barbed wire invented
The need for barbed wire arose in the 19th century as the American frontier moved westward into the Great Plains and traditional fence materials—wooden rails and stone—became scarce and expensive. Of the many early types of barbed wire, the type invented in Illinois in 1873 by Joseph F. Glidden proved most popular. -
Panic of 1873
Banks and other industries were putting their money in railroads. So when the banking firm of Jay Cooke and Company, a firm heavily invested in railroad construction, closed its doors on September 18, 1873, a major economic panic swept the nation. On September 18, the firm realized it had overextended itself and declared bankruptcy. That same year, the depression set off railroad strikes. -
Carnegie Steel Founded
Carnegie worked in a Pittsburgh cotton factory as a boy before rising to the position of division superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1859. While working for the railroad, he invested in various ventures, including iron and oil companies, and made his first fortune by the time he was in his early 30s. In the early 1870s, he entered the steel business, and over the next two decades became a dominant force in the industry. -
Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone
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. -
WCTU founded
National Woman's Christian Temperance Union was founded un Cleveland, OH. It grew out of the "Woman's Crusade" of the winter of 1873-1874. After listening to a lecture by Dr. Dio Lewis, women were moved to a non-violent protest against the dangers of alcohol. -
First Farmers Alliance formed
fraternal organization of white farmers and other rural southerners, including teachers, ministers, and physicians, the Farmers' Alliance began in Texas in the mid-1870s and swept across the entire South during the late 1880s. It advocated a federal farm-credit and marketing scheme called the subtreasury plan. When these efforts failed, the Alliance played a leading role in establishing a national third party, the People's or Populist Party, in the early 1890s. -
Civil Rights Act passed
prohibited discrimination in public accommodations, including inns, theaters, public conveyances on land or water, and "other places of public amusement." -
Whiskey Ring uncovered
In the US, the Whiskey Ring was a scandal involving diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors. -
Sioux uprising
That fall, a US commission was sent to each of the Indian agencies to hold councils with the Lakota. They hoped to gain the people's approval and thereby bring pressure on the Lakota leaders to sign a new treaty. The government's attempt to secure the Black Hills failed.While the Black Hills were at the center of the growing crisis, Lakota resentment was growing over expanding US interests in other portions of Lakota territory. -
Specie Resumption Act passed
struggle between “soft money” forces, who advocated continued use of Civil War greenbacks, and their “hard $” opponents, who wished to redeem the paper money and resume a specie currency.By the end of the Civil War, more than $430 million in greenbacks were in circulation, made legal tender by congressional mandate. After the S Ct sanctioned the constitutionality of the greenbacks as legal tender, hard $ advocates in Congress pushed for early resumption of specie payments. -
John Hopkins Univ creates 1st modern grad school
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Battle at the Little Bighorn
On this day in 1876, Native American forces led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana's Little Bighorn River. -
Last fed troops leave South
Immediately after the presidential election of 1876, a bipartisan congressional commission debated over the outcome early in 1877, allies of the Repub Party candidate Hayes met in secret with moderate southern Democrats in order to negotiate acceptance of Hayes' election. The Dems agreed not to block Hayes' victory on the condition that Repub withdraw all fed troops from the South, thus consolidating Dem control over the region. As a result of the so-called Compromise of 1877 -
Rutherford B. Hayes elected president
Safe liberalism, party loyalty, and a good war record made Hayes an acceptable Republican candidate in 1876. He opposed Governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York. Months of uncertainty followed. In January 1877 Congress established an Electoral Commission to decide the dispute. The commission, made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats, determined all the contests in favor of Hayes by eight to seven. The final electoral vote: 185 to 184. -
Nez Perce War
Chief Joseph & his tribe were oredered to move to a reservation. 4 of Chief Joseph's braves killed 16 white settlers & when the army began to take their possesions as retaliation, the Nez Perce refused to move to the reservation due to this contract breach. The only real choice they had was to try to get to Canada & enlist the aid of Chief Sitting Bull. After 4 battles, & Toohoolhoolzote's 25 men pinned down Howard's 500, the Nez Perce were defeated at Bear Paw Mt. -
Railroad workers strike
Chicagoans played their part in the first nationwide uprising of workers. On July 16, railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, walked off the job to protest a 10 percent wage cut leveled by their employer, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Strikes to protest cutbacks in the midst of a period of nationwide economic depression soon spread westward across the country. -
Thomas Edison improved on the electric light bulb
Contrary to popular belief, he didn't "invent" the lightbulb, but rather he improved upon a 50-year-old idea. In 1879, using lower current electricity, a small carbonized filament, and an improved vacuum inside the globe, he was able to produce a reliable, long-lasting source of light. -
James Garfield elected president
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Joel Chandler Harris publishes Uncle Remus
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Helen Hunt Jackson's "A Century of Dishonor"
Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor exposed the federal government’s harsh and duplicitous treatment of American Indians in the West. -
American Federation of Labor formed
one of the first federations of labor unions in the US. It was founded 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 pres of the Fed. The AFL was the largest union grouping in the US for the 1st half of the 20th century, even after even after the creation of the CIO by unions that were expelled by the AFL in 1935 over its opposition to industirial unionism -
Garfield assassinated; Chester Arthur becomes president
Just four months into his term, on July 2, Garfield was shot by a crazed assassin named Charles Guiteau. Guiteau claimed to have killed Garfield because he refused to grant Guiteau a political appointment. -
Chinese Exclusion Act passes
most significant restrictions on free immigration in U.S. history, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. The act followed revisions made in 1880 to the U.S.-China Burlingame Treaty of 1868, revisions that allowed the U.S. to suspend Chinese immigration. The act was initially intended to last for 10 years, but was renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902. It was finally repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943. -
Rockefeller creates 1st trust
Ever since 1872, Standard had placed its gains outside OH in hands of Flagler as "trustee" because laws denied one company's ownership of another's stock. All profits went to the OH company while the outside businesses remained independent. 9 trustees of the Standard Oil Trust received the stock of 40 businesses & gave the various shareholders trust certificates in return. -
Pendelton Act
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was passed. In an attempt to curb corruption and patronage, the act introduced federal exams and merit requirements for the hiring of civil servants. -
Brooklyn Bridge opens
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Northern Pacific Railroad completed
The completion of the Northern Pacific railroad was celebrated with a “golden spike” ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana. The final leg of great railway building, the Great Northern Railway, which crossed the Cascades and reached Seattle, was completed in 1893. -
Helen Hunt Jackson publishes Ramona
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1st steel girder "skyscrapper" built
It was, however, the refinement of the Bessemer process, first used in the United States in the 1860s, that allowed for the major advance in skyscraper construction. As steel is stronger and lighter in weight than iron, the use of a steel frame made possible the construction of truly tall buildings. William Le Baron Jenney’s 10-story Home Insurance Company Building (1884–85) in Chicago was the first to use steel-girder construction. -
Grover Cleveland elected president
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Mark Twain publishes Huckleberry Finn
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Wabash case
S CT restricts tate regulation of commerce -
Haymarket Square riot
At Haymarket Square in Chicago, IL, a bomb is thrown at a squad of policemen attempting to break up a labor rally. The police responded with wild gunfire, killing several people in the crowd and injuring dozens more. -
Geronimo surrenders
Apache chief Geronimo surrenders to U.S. govt troops. The mighty Native American warrior had battled to protect his tribe's homeland; however, by 1886 the Apaches were exhausted and hopelessly outnumbered. General Nelson Miles accepted Geronimo's surrender, making him the last Indian warrior to formally give in to U.S. forces and signaling the end of the Indian Wars in the Southwest. -
AFL founded
Trade unions formed the American Federation of Labor to organize skilled workers. Cigar maker Samuel Gompers was its first president. Gompers was concerned with practical matters of labor like hours, pay, and working conditions rather than political or social issues. Under his leadership, the American Federation of Labor became an influential labor union and an effective model for collective bargaining. -
Interstate Commerce Act passed
act was passed in response to rising public concern w/ the growing power & wealth of corporations, particularly RxRs. RxRs had become the principal form of transportation for both people & goods, & the prices they charged and the practices they adopted greatly influenced individuals and businesses. In some cases, the RxRs were perceived to have abused their power as a result of too little competition. RxRs also banded together to together to form pools and trusts that fixed rates at higher level -
Dawes Act passed
authorized the Pres of US to survey Indian tribal land & divide it into allotments for individual Indians. Dawes Act was amended in 1891 & 1906 by the Burke Act. The Act was named for its sponsor, Sen Henry Laurens Dawes of MA. The stated objective of the Dawes Act was to stimulate assimilation of Indians into American society. Individual ownership of land was seen as an essential step. The act also provided that the govt would purchase Indian lands needed for allotment & open for settlement. -
Benjamin Harrison elected president
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"Gospel of Wealth" published
Andrew Carnegie published his essay “The Gospel of Wealth” in May 1889. In it, Carnegie asserted the benefits and responsibilities of wealth, calling on the wealthy to consider “the most beneficial result for the community.” One of Carnegie’s first forays was a massive program to build public libraries. A total of 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929. The Carnegie Foundation continues to distribute his fortune to philanthropic causes. -
Jane Addams opens Hull House
settlement house in Chicago, IL that was co-founded by Addams & Ellen Gates Starr. Hull House (named for the home's first owner) opened its doors to the recently arrived European immigrants. With its innovative social, educational, and artistic programs, Hull House became the standard bearer for the movement that had grown, by 1920, to almost 500 settlement houses nationally. -
Buffalo nearly extinct
Bison had been hunted to near extinction by 1890. One person still making money off the popular images of the Wild West was William “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Before the Civil War, he rode for the Pony Express, and during the war he worked as an Army scout and soldier. In the late 1860s, Cody hunted buffalo on the Great Plains to help feed the builders of the Union Pacific Railroad. He earned his nickname by killing a dozen buffalo a day for two years. -
Jacob Riis publishes How The Other Half Lives
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Alfred T Mahan publishes The Influence of Sea Power upon History
The 1890s were marked by social and economic unrest throughout the United States, which culminated in the onset of an economic depression between 1893 and 1894. The publication of Mahan's books preceded much of the disorder associated with the 1890s, but his work resonated with many leading intellectuals and politicians concerned by the political and economic challenges of the period and the declining lack of economic opportunity on the American continent. -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed
The act was aimed at regulating businesses. However, its application was not limited to the commercial side of business. Its prohibition of the cartel was also interpreted to make illegal many labor union activities. This is because unions were characterized as cartels. This persisted until 1914, when the Clayton Act created exceptions for certain union activities. -
Sherman Silver Purchase Act passed
The act did not authorize the free and unlimited coinage of silver that the Free Silver supporters wanted. However, it increased the amount of silver the government was required to purchase on a recurrent monthly basis to 4.5 million ounces. -
McKinley Tariff enacted
Tariffs are taxes placed on foreign goods by federal governments. By placing taxes on foreign goods, these products become more expensive. As a result of the increased prices for foreign goods, hopefully citizens of a nation will purchase items manufactured within their own country. -
Battle of Wounded Knee
in SW SD, was the site of two conflicts between North American Indians & representatives of the U.S. govt. Massacre left some 150 Native Americans dead, in what was the final clash between federal troops and the Sioux. In 1973, members of the US Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee for 71 days to protest conditions on the reservation. -
Hawaii annexed
In Hawaii, foreign entrepreneurs, fearing Queen Lili’uokalani’s plan to restore the kingdom to indigenous Hawaiians, staged a revolt by declaring Hawaii a republic and seeking annexation by the US. American Marines invaded, Lili’uokalani surrendered, and the US minister to Hawaii declared it a protectorate of the United States. -
James Naismith invents basketball
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General Electric formed
In 1892, Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric. After financing the creation of the Federal Steel Company, he merged it in 1901 with the Carnegie Steel Company and several other steel and iron businesses to form the United States Steel Corporation. -
Ellis Island opens
Fifteen-year-old Annie Moore of Ireland was the first immigrant to pass through Ellis Island. More than 12 million steerage and third class passengers followed in her wake. The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Foundation opened the American Family Immigration History Center at Ellis Island in 2001 which contains a database of copied manifests for Ellis Island and the Port of New York between 1892 and 1924. -
Homestead Strike
Conflict at Homestead arose at a time when the fast-changing American economy had stumbled and conflicts between labor and management had flared up all over the country. Carnegie's mighty steel industry was not immune to the downturn. In 1890, the price of rolled-steel products started to decline. In the face of depressed steel prices, Henry C. Frick, gen mgr of Homestead plant that Carnegie owned, was determined to cut wages & break the Amalgamated Ass. of Iron & Steel Workers -
People's Party formed in Omaha
Although historians often speak of a “Populist movement” in the 1880s, it wasn’t until 1892 that the People’s or Populist Party was formally organized. The Omaha Platform, adopted by the founding convention of the party on July 4, 1892, set out the basic tenets of the Populist movement. The movement had emerged out of the cooperative crusade organized by the Farmer’s Alliance in the 1880s. -
Cleveland elected president again
Former Pres Cleveland ran for re-election against the incumbent Pres Harrison also running for re-election. Cleveland defeated Harrison, thus becoming the only person in US history to be elected to a 2nd, non-consecutive presidential term. Cleveland also became the first Democrat to be nominated by his party three consecutive times, a distinction that would be equaled only by FDR in 1940 and then exceeded by him in 1944. -
Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago
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Depression begins
The Depression of 1893 can be seen as a watershed event in American history. It was accompanied by violent strikes, the climax of the Populist and free silver political crusades, the creation of a new political balance, the continuing transformation of the country's economy, major changes in national policy, and far-reaching social and intellectual developments. Business contraction shaped the decade that ushered out the nineteenth century. -
Frederick Jackson Turner proposes "frontier thesis"
Presented his “frontier thesis” at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He pointed to expansion as the most important factor in American history and claimed that “the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development.” In 1890, however, the Census Bureau stated that all the land within the United States was claimed, and that the frontier was "closed" and thus no longer worked -
Coexy's Army
Ohio Populist Jacob S. Coxey led unemployed workers in a march on Washington, DC, to call on Congress to create public-works jobs. In this photo of Coxey’s Army approaching Washington the signs carried read: “More money! Less misery! Good Roads!” -
Pullman Strike
The boycott, over declining wages, although centered in Chicago, crippled railroad traffic nationwide, until the fed govt intervened in early July, 1st with a comprehensive injunction essentially forbidding all boycott activity & then by dispatching regular soldiers to Chicago & elsewhere. The soldiers joined with local authorities in getting the trains running again, though not w/out considerable vandalism & violence. -
Jim Crow laws passed throughout the South
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1st Coney Island Amusement Park
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Booker T Washington outlines Atlanta Compromise
was the first speech given by an African American man in front of a racially mixed audience in the South. In it, Washington suggested that African Americans should not agitate for social & political equality in return for the opportunity to acquire vocational training and participate in the economic development of the New South. He believed that through hard work and hard-earned respect, African Americans would gain the esteem of white society & eventually full citizenship. -
The Red Badge of Courage published
by Stephen Crane -
Plessy v. Ferguson
In the pivotal case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially separate facilities, if equal. This case did not violate the Constitution upholds "separate but equal". Segregation, the Court said, was not discrimination. -
William Jennings Bryan delivers Cross of Gold speech
At Dem Natl Convention in Chicago, Bryan gave a speech that electrified his party. But his "Cross of Gold" speech — about the gold standard and its impact on the working class — won him the nomination. It is known today as one of the most important oratorical performances in US history. That year, Bryan ran against Repub William McKinley, and lost. -
McKinley elected President
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USS Maine explodes
subsequent diplomatic failures to resolve the Maine matter, coupled with United States indignation over Spain's brutal suppression of the Cuban rebellion and continued losses to American investment, led to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898. -
Spanish-American War
Cubans began to fight for their independence from Spain in 1895. Newspaper publishers like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer worked up war fever among the public with reports of Spanish atrocities against Cuban rebels. A naval court of inquiry blamed the explosion of the Maine on a mine, further inflaming public sentiment against Spain. After ten days of debate, Congress declared war, but only after adopting the Teller Amendment -
Philippine-American War
a young Filipino general, Emilio Aguinaldo, proclaimed Philippine independence and established Asia’s first republic. He had hoped that the Philippines would become a US protectorate, but pressure on President William McKinley to annex the Philippines was intense. On February 4, 1899, fighting erupted between American and Filipino soldiers. American commanders hoped for a short conflict, but in the end more than 70,000 fought in the archipelago. Unable to defeat the US in conventional warfare, t -
Treaty of Paris signed
The Treaty officially ended the Sp-Am War. The once-proud Spanish empire was virtually dissolved as the US took over much of Spain's overseas holdings. Puerto Rico & Guam were ceded to the US, the Philippines were bought for $20 million, and Cuba became a U.S. protectorate. Philippine insurgents who fought against Spanish rule during the war immediately turned their guns against the new occupiers and 10x more U.S. troops died suppressing the Philippines than in defeating Spain. -
Hay releases Open Door Notes
These notes aimed to secure internatl agreement to the US policy of promoting equal opportunity for internatl trade & commerce in China, & respect for China’s administrative & territorial integrity. British and US policies toward China had long operated under similar principles, but once Hay put them into writing, the “Open Door” became the official US policy towards the Far East in the first half of the 20th century.
