Gilded Age: 1877-1900

Homestead Act

1862 (promising 160 acres to settlers)

Morrill Land-Grant Act

1862 (funding agricultural and mechanical colleges)

Pacific Railroad Act

1862 (chartering the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads)

Pullman Sleeping Car

1864 (patented, revolutionizing rail travel)

National Labor Union (NLU)

1866 (the first national labor federation)

First Transcontinental Railroad

1869 (completed at Promontory Summit, Utah)

Knights of Labor

1869 (founded as a secret labor society)

Westinghouse Air Brake

1869 (patented, making railroads safer)

Boss Tweed & Tammany Hall

1870 (dominate New York City politics through corruption “honest graft”)

Apache Wars

1872-1886 (rage in Southwest, ending with Geronimo’s surrender)

Crime of (demonetizing silver)

1873 (places the U.S. on the gold standard; sparks future outrage)

Panic of (economic depression)

1873 (triggers a severe five-year depression)

Battle of Little Bighorn

1876 (Sioux and Cheyenne warriors annihilate Custer’s 7th Cavalry)

U.S. v. Reese

1876 (Supreme Court undermines the 15th Amendment, allowing voter suppression tactics)

Bell’s telephone

1876 (Bell patents the telephone)

Disputed Presidential Election (leads to Compromise)

1876 (sets stage for the Compromise of 1877)

Compromise of Withdrawing Southern Troops

1877 (Rutherford B. Hayes becomes president; federal troops are withdrawn from the South, ending Reconstruction)

Great Railroad Strike

1877 (first nationwide strike, halted by federal troops)

Munn v. Illinois

1877 (Supreme Court allows states to regulate businesses “Affected with a public interest”

“Jim Crow” era begins

1877 (last federal troops leave the South; “Jim Crow” era begins

Bland-Allison Act

1878 (requires limited silver coinage, a minor victory for inflationists)

Founding of Edison Electric Light Company

1878 (Thomas Edison)

Incandescent Light Bulb Invention

1879 (Edison demonstrates a practical incandescent light bulb)

Henry George’s “Progress and Poverty”

1879 (published, criticizing inequality)

“Exodusters”

1879 (thousands of African Americans migrate from the South to Kansas)

“New Immigrants”

1880s (from Southern and Eastern Europe begin arriving in large numbers

Farmers’ Alliance

1880s (movement grows rapidly in the South and West)

President James Garfield Assassination

1881 (by Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker)

Founding of Tuskegee Institute

1881 (Booker T. Washington founds the Tuskegee Institute)

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 (first major law restricting immigration by ethnicity)

Standard Oil Trust

1882 (John D. Rockefeller organizes the Standard Oil Trust)

First Permanent Commercial Power Station

1882 (Edison opens at Pearl Street, NYC)

Civil Service (Pendleton) Act

1883 (passed, creating a merit-based system for federal jobs)

Standardized National Time Zones

1883 (railroads institute 4 standardized national time zones)

Brooklyn Bridge opens

1883

Grover Cleveland’s First Term

1885 (first Democratic president in 1856)

Haymarket Affair

1886 (bombing at labor rally in Chicago leads to crackdown on radical and cripples the Knight of Labor)

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

1886 (founded under Samuel Gompers)

Interstate Commerce Act

1886 (passed), creating the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

Creation of Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

1886

Wabash v. Illinois

1886 (Supreme Court rules states cannot regulate interstate rail rates, underscoring need for ICC)

Standardized Railroad Gauge

1886 (adopted nationwide)

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

1886 (founded)

Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

1887 (begins operations — weak initially)

Dawes Severalty Act

1887 (passed, breaking up tribal lands to promote asimilation

Hatch Act

1887 (provides federal funding for agricultural experiment stations

Jane Addams & Hull House

1889 (Chicago, launching the settlement house movement)

Sherman Anti-Trust Act

1890 (passed, outlawing monopolies in “restraint of trade”

Sherman Silver Purchase Act

1890 (requires government to buy 4.5 million ounces of silver monthly)

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) Formation

1890 (led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony)

Yosemite National Park Established

1890

Wounded Knee Massacre

1890 (U.S. Army kills over 200 Lakota Sioux, ending the Indian Wars on the Plains)

McKinley Tariff

1890 (enacted, raising rates to record highs)

Death on the “Frontier”

1890 (superintendent of the census declares the frontier line closed)

Homestead Strike

1892 (violent clash between steelworkers and Pinkertons at Carnegie’s mill; strike broken)

Populist (People’s) Party

1892 (holds its first national convention in Omaha, nominating James B. Weaver for president

Ellis Island opens

1892 (opens as an immigrant processing station)

Panic of (2nd economic depression)

1892 (triggers a devastating four-year depression)

Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”

1892 (delivers his Frontier Thesis essay)

World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago World’s Fair)

1893 (showcases American industry and the “City Beautiful” ideal

Pullman Strike

1894 (nationwide railroad boycott led by Eugene V. Debs; broken by federal injunctions and troops)

Coxey’s Army

1894 (march of the unemployed on Washington, D.C.)

Wilson-Gorman Tariff

1894 (becomes the law, including a modest income tax—struck down in 1895)

U.S. v. E.C. Knight Co.

1895 (Supreme Court rules the Sherman Act does not apply to manufacturing monopolies, crippling it)

Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” Speech

1895

In re Debs

1895 (Supreme Court upholds use of injunctions against labor unions)

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 (supreme court establishes the “separate but equal” doctrine, legalizing Jim Crow segregation)

“Cross of Gold” Election

1896 (McKinley—R, gold standard—defeats Bryan—D/Populist, free silver. Marks the triumph of urban-industrial American and the collapse of the Populist Party as a major force)

Henry Ford’s 1st Automobile

1896

McKiney Inauguartion

1897

“Fourth Party System” (GOP dominance) Begins

1897

“Greenback” and “Silverite” Merge

1898 (these factions of the Populist Party effectively merge into the Democratic Party)

The Theory of the Leisure Class (Thorstein Veblen)

1899 (critiquing “conspicuous consumption”

Gold Standard Act

1900 (officially places the U.S. on the gold standard)

Carrie Chapman Catt (President of NAWSA)

1900

International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) Founded

1900

Theodore Roosevelt (Vice President)

1900

Creation of U.S. Steel

1901 (J.P. Morgan, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation, from Carnegie Steel)

President McKinley Assasinated

1901

Theodore Roosevelt becomes President

1901

Progressive Era Beginnings

1901