1862 11/9/18641863Homestead Act:

An act passed by Congress to encourage westward expansion. It offered 160 acres of land free to any citizen or intended citizen who was the head of their household. Accepted by up to 600,000 families by 1900.

Sand Creek Massacre:

Ordered by General S.R. Curtis, the US Army Commander in the West. An attack on all of the Cheyenne and Arapaho camped at sand creek (500 women and children and just 200 warriors.) 150 were killed; most of the dead were women and children.

Carnegie Enters Steel: After visiting a steel mill and witnessing the Bessemer Process in action, Andrew Carnegie decided to enter the steel business. Of course, he became incredibly successful.

= Military = Legislative = Social/Economic

1864Crédit Mobilier Scam: A construction company hired by stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad Company to lay track at 2-3 times the actual cost. Stockholders took the profits, and weren’t caught until 3 years later.

1866 1/1/1867 1868

National Labor Union (NLU) Formed: Formed by ironworker William H. Sylvis, this was the first large-scale national labor organization. Unfortunately, some local chapters refused membership to African-Americans.

Cutoff Date For Grandfather Clauses: This was the date which enabled poor whites to vote while still keeping blacks from voting. The rule of the grandfather clauses was that if a citizen, his father, or his grandfather could vote before this date (which was when black suffrage became legal) then he didn’t have to pay a poll tax.

Boss Tweed Gains Control of Tammany Hall: William M. Tweed, better known as Boss Tweed, became president of New York City’s powerful Democratic political machine,Tammany Hall, in 1868.

1868National Labor Union Gets 8-Hour Workdays Legalized: The NLU persuaded Congress to pass a law mandating eight-hour workdays for all government workers.

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5/10/1869 1869 1869

The First North American Transcontinental Railroad is Completed: After a long process of building, the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads finally met in Promontory, Utah on this date. The location is marked by a golden spike.

Knights of Labor is Formed: Uriah Stevens, in an effort to focus more on individual workers, established the Noble Order of the Knights of labor. The Order welcomed all races, genders, or degree of skill, advocating “equal pay for equal work.”

Boss Tweed Defrauds New York City: Through his new power at Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed proceeded to commit all sorts of fraud in order to make more money, including charging about $10 million extra for the city’s new $3 million courthouse and keeping it for himself and the “Tweed Ring.”

1869

Jacob Riis Enters New York City from Denmark: Riis’s arrival is important because he would soon bring long-overdue attention to the conditions in the city’s slums through his job as a police reporter.

1871 10/8/1871 1872

Boss Tweed and the Tweed Ring Fall: Thanks to political cartoons by Thomas Nast which engaged the public in the outrageous graft which was taking place, Boss Tweed was arrested and charged with 120 counts of fraud and received 12 years in prison.

The Great Chicago Fire: Burned for over 24 hours, killing about 300 people. 100,000 were left homeless, and over 3 square miles of the city’s heart were destroyed in flames. $200 million in property and 17,500 buildings were destroyed.

The Montgomery-Ward Catalog Is Introduced: The first major catalog to bring retail into small towns. Started out as a single sheet when it first began, but it was a booklet with ordering instructions in ten different languages soon.

1875Eugene V. Debs Helps to Organize the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen: Although Debs was unsuccessful in uniting the local railroad brotherhoods, this work inspired him to later found the American Railway Union (ARU).

1876 1876

The Battle of Little Bighorn (or Custer’s Last Stand): Extremely bloody battle between Sitting Bull’s tribe and General George A. Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. Custer’s men were wiped out. Sitting Bull left no survivors.

Rutherford B. Hayes Is Elected: The Republican Candidate for the 1876 election, Hayes triumphed and took the presidency.

Thomas Alva Edison Establishes the World’s First Research Laboratory: In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison established the research laboratory in which, four years later, he would perfect the incandescent light bulb.

June 1876 1876The Telephone Is Invented: Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson co-invented the telephone, enabling instant long-distance verbal communication.

1877 1879 1880

The Nez Perce Are Expelled from their Land: The Nez Perce tribe (with great resistance) are expelled from their land in Oregon and relocated to Idaho. Several Nez Perce escaped to Sitting Bull’s camp in Canada after losing the war, including Chief Joseph.

Minimum Standards For New York City Slums are Established by the City: Though they didn’t accomplish incredible amounts, the passing of minimum requirements for plumbing and ventilation in apartments sent a clear message: New York cared about its poor.

John D. Rockefeller Gains Control of 90% of the Oil Industry in America: He made a mind-blowing leap from his two to three percent just ten years earlier. Rockefeller got essentially a monopoly and controlled prices and wages for everyone involved in the oil industry.

1880

Pullman, Illinois Is Founded: Pullman founded a town for all of his factory’s employees to live in so that he could be in complete control of them. No drinking was allowed, and all the basic necessities of living were well provided for.

1882 1883A Century of Dishonor Is Published: Well-known author Helen Hunt Jackson wrote a book called A Century of Dishonor which exposed all of the government’s broken promises and violated treaties with Native Americans to the American Public.

Chinese Exclusion Act: Banned entry to all Chinese except students, teachers, tourists, merchants, and government officials for ten years. The law was renewed ten years later, and then extended indefinitely; the law was repealed in 1943.

Joseph Pulitzer Purchases the New York World: This purchase gave rise to lots of Pulitzer’s innovations being released to the public, such as a large Sunday edition, comics, sports coverage, and women’s news.

1881 1884

Grover Cleveland is Elected: The first Democratic president in 28 years, Grover Cleveland would not be reelected but would be elected again later in the 1892 election. He is the only president to have served two nonconsecutive terms.

1886!

Sears Roebuck Catalog Established: The Sears catalog would continue the mail-order trend set by Montgomery Ward, and would actually end up outlasting it. Richard Sears’s new company would get hundreds of orders a day.

Colored Farmers’ National Alliance Formed: Founded in Houston, Texas by a white Baptist Missionary named R. M. Humphrey. Often forced to operate in secret, but held same cooperative values as the white Farmers’ National Alliance.

Cigar Makers’ International Union Joins Other Craft Unions: Led by Samuel Gompers, an extraordinary man dedicated to the advancement of craft unionism. This involved skilled workers from one or more trades but not unskilled ones.

1887!

Interstate Commerce Act: Created an Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) comprised of five officials whose job it was to regulate railroads. Essentially lots the battle until the ICC was reinstated with enough power in the early 20th century..

Iron Is Discovered in the Mesabi Mountains: Iron ore deposits over 100 miles long and 3 miles wide in Minnesota’s Mesabi mountain range were discovered by prospectors, simultaneously with the rise in coal production.

Dawes Act: An act passed by congress in order to attempt assimilation. Reservations were broken up and each Native American who was the head of a household received 160 acres. Not very fair, because land quality differed vastly and could not be chosen by Native Americans.

1888 1889 1889

Kodak Camera Released: Invented by George Eastman. Came with a roll of film which could be sent back to the developer, developed, and replaced for only $10. Opened the door for amateur photography and many kinds of reporting.

Establishment of Chicago’s Hull House by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr: A big part of the Settlement House Movement. Jane Addams was well known for her generosity and described herself as “simple.”

Oklahoma Land Giveaway: Settlers claimed over two million acres in what is now Oklahoma in less than a day. Some got to the land before the government actually declared it open, and Oklahoma became the Sooner State.

1890The End of the Gilded Age: The Gilded age lasted from 1870-1890 with its corrupt politicians and dirty industrialists, but the era of such things wound to a close about a decade before the turn of the century.

1890 1890 12/1890Sherman Antitrust Act: An inefficient act aimed at getting rid of dirty business tactics like Rockefeller’s using trusts. However, it wasn’t a particularly well g=crafted piece of legislation and didn’t define what a trust was specifically enough and so trusts continued while enforcement couldn’t begin.

Average Weekly Pay Was $17.50: The average weekly pay was fairly mediocre in the 1890s, but with the labor union movement it would see a drastic rise to a total of about twenty four dollars per week by 1915.

Sitting Bull Killed: Sitting Bull was shot by Native American Reservation police while resisting arrest for preparing to allow his tribe to participate in the Ghost Dance, which could not be done unless the word came from Sitting Bull himself.

12/1890

The Battle of Wounded Knee: Honestly more of a massacre than a battle. Unarmed Native Americans were forced to go with American troops, who killed a large number of the Native Americans when someone fired.

1892 1893 1894

Ida B. Wells Sees a Lynching: After watching three of her friends who were African-American businessmen be lynched, Ida B. Wells launched a crusade against lynching and racism.

Ellis Island is Established: A predominant entrance point to the United States for immigrants. Very busy and stressful to go through, but many came from such rough situations in their home countries that it was utterly worth it.

American Railway Union Wins a Big Victory: Eugene Debs and the Railway Union were in need of a victory to help it gain members and power and momentum, and they got one in 1894 when they struck for higher wages. Two months later, membership was at 150,000.

1894The Immigration Restriction League is Formed: Founded in part by Prescott F. Hall, they wanted immigrants—just not down-trodden, stagnant ones. They believed it was best to have immigrants from certain progressive countries as opposed to unhappy, unproductive countries.

The Panic of 1893: An economic depression that caused lots of strife among families due to decreased wages and higher prices in the manufacturing world.

The Pullman Strike: The ARU and some other labor unions struck against Pullman when he cut wages by 25-50% but did not lower rent payment on their living facilities. Pullman hired strikebreakers and that was the end of the strike.

1895 1896 1896

W.E.B. Du Bois receives a PhD from Harvard University: He is the first African-American ever to receive a doctorate from Harvard. He wanted blacks to have liberal arts educations.

William Randolph Hearst Purchases the New York Morning Journal: Enabled competition between himself and Mr. Pulitzer and furthered the amount of news readily available to the country as a whole.

William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” Speech: One of the more famous speeches of all time. He railed against the use of only gold-backed money, saying that gold bugs were crucifying the nation on a cross of gold. Sadly, he was not elected due to his poor choice of vice presidents.

Rural Free Delivery System: A system devised by the United States Post Office so that they could deliver packages directly to the door of everyone in order to support the growing catalog business.

William McKinley is Elected: The Republican candidate McKinley won the 1896 race, which was a turning point in the direction of the Great Depression because he favored deflation and the gold standard.

Plessy v. Ferguson case: The court case that legalized segregation: it is not a violation of the fourteenth amendment if it is separate but equal. Sadly, the separate facilities were never equal and African-Americans received unfairly poor treatment from whites in all aspects of their lives.

1897 1898 10/1899Literacy Test for Immigrants is Established: Congress passes the bill mandating a literacy test by inspiration of the Immigration Restriction league. Although the bill was vetoed, it was still a powerful statement of public sentiment.

The US Comes into Possession of Hawaii: US annexation of Hawaii led to increased Japanese emigration to America and specifically the West Coast. Immigration grew rapidly and over 200,000 Japanese lived on the West Coast by 1920.

Vaudeville Hailed as “an American Invention”: Actor Edwin Milton Royle hailed Vaudeville theatre as being an American invention with something in it for nearly everyone. It was a performing art form which no longer cast African-Americans as unintelligent minstrel characters.