America 1861-1930

By Jess08

  • South Carolina secedes

    The first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States.
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    Abraham Lincoln President

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    Civil War

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    South Carolina is joined by 6 states becoming the Confederate States of America

    Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas

  • Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederate States of America

  • Morrill Tariff Act passed

    The law made some significant changes in how duties were assessed on goods entering the country. It also raised rates to encourage domestic industry and to foster high wages for industrial workers.
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    4 upper South States seced

    Virginia, Arkanasas, North Carolina, and Tennessee

  • Lincoln suspends writ of habeas corpus

    Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus between Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia to give military authorities the necessary power to silence dissenters and rebels. Under this order, commanders could arrest and detain individuals who were deemed threatening to military operations.

  • First Battle of Bull Run

    Also known as the First Battle of Manassas was the first major battle of the American Civil War.

  • Trent affair

    A diplomatic crisis that threatened a war between the United States and Great Britain. The U.S. Navy illegally captured two Confederate diplomats from a British ship.

  • Congress authorizes transcontinental railroad

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    Alabama raids Northern Shipping

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    McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign

    Fought during the spring and summer of 1862, was an attempt by Union general-in-chief George B. McClellan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond from the southeast during the American Civil War

  • Naval Battle of Merrimack and Monitor

    Also called Battle of Hampton Roads was a naval engagement at Hampton Roads, Virginia, a harbour at the mouth of the James River. It is notable as history's first duel between ironclad warships and the beginning of a new era of naval warfare.

  • Union enacts conscription

    The U.S. Congress passes a conscription act that produces the first wartime draft of U.S. citizens in American history. The act called for registration of all males between the ages of 20 and 45, including aliens with the intention of becoming citizens.

  • Battle of Shiloh

    Also known as the Battle of Pittsburgh Landing was a crucial victory for the Union during the Civil War.

  • Confederacy enacts conscription

    Enabled all white males between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five eligible to be drafted into military service. This was the first draft in American History
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    Northern army seizes New Orleans

  • Homestead Act

    Encouraged Western migration by providing settlers 160 acres of public land. In exchange, homesteaders paid a small filing fee and were required to complete five years of continuous residence before receiving ownership of the land.
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    Seven Days’ Battles

    A series of American Civil War battles in which a Confederate army under General Robert E. Lee drove back General George B. McClellan's Union forces and thwarted the Northern attempt to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.

  • Morrill Act

    Provides public land for higher education. This act made it possible for new western states to establish colleges for their citizens. The new land-grant institutions, which emphasized agriculture and mechanic arts, opened opportunities to thousands of farmers and working people previously excluded from higher education.
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    Second Battle of Bull Run

    Despite heavy Confederate casualties (9,000), this battle also known as Second Battle of Manassas was a decisive victory for the rebels, as Lee had managed a strategic offensive against an enemy force, Pope and McClellan's, twice the size of his own.

  • Battle of Antietam

    The bloodiest day in the history of American war, with over 23,000 soldiers wounded, killed, or missing.

  • Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation

    President Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in the midst of the Civil War announcing that if the rebels did not end the fighting and rejoin the Union by January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states would be free
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    Battle of Fredericksburg

    It is one of the most significant battles of the war. It was a battle with many Union casualties, the largest river crossing of the war, and it also acted as a boost for the Confederate hopes of victory.
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    Reconstruction

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    Battle of Chancellorsville

    This was a huge victory for the Confederacy and General Robert E. Lee during the Civil War, though it is also famous for being the battle in which Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was mortally wounded.
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    Fall of Vicksburg

    Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River; therefore, capturing it completed the second part of the Northern strategy, the Anaconda Plan. The successful ending of the Vicksburg campaign significantly degraded the ability of the Confederacy to maintain its war effort.
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    Fall of Port Hudson

    The Siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, was the final engagement in the Union campaign to recapture the Mississippi River in the American Civil War.
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    Battle of Gettysburg

    The turning point of the American Civil War. It was a Union victory that stopped Confederate General Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North. More than 50,000 men fell as casualties during the 3-day battle, making it the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War.

  • Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

    Lincoln issued a Proclamation offering pardon to Confederates who would swear to support the Constitution and the Union. The lenient Ten percent Plan first required 10% of seceded state voters take oath of loyalty to Union.
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    Grant’s Wilderness Campaign

    Grant's first campaign against Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to end the war. Grant's Army of the Potomac, numbering approximately 120,000 men, advanced across the Rapidan River into a place in Virginia known as the Wilderness.
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    Battle of Cold Harbor

    This was a frontal assault on Confederate lines that ended in nearly 7,000 Union casualties after less than an hour—by some accounts most were lost in as little as 10 minutes. It was one of the most brutal confrontations of the war.

  • The Battle of Cherbourg

    Also known as the Battle off Cherbourg or the Sinking of CSS Alabama, this was a single-ship action fought during the American Civil War between a United States Navy warship, USS Kearsarge, and a Confederate States Navy warship, CSS Alabama off Cherbourg, France.

  • Lincoln vetoes Wade-Davis Bill

    Lincoln wanted to mend the Union by carrying out the ten percent plan. He believed it would be too difficult to repair all of the ties within the Union if the Wade–Davis bill passed.

  • Nevada admitted to Union

  • Lincoln defeats McClellan for presidency

    In the midst of the American Civil War, incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 212–21 in the electoral college, with 55% of the popular vote.
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    Sherman’s march through Georgia

    Sherman's March to the Sea also known as the Savannah Campaign was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. The purpose of Sherman's March to the Sea was to frighten Georgia's civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. Sherman's soldiers did not destroy any of the towns in their path, but they stole food and livestock and burned the houses and barns of people who tried to fight back.

  • Sand Creek Massacre

    Peaceful Southern Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians are massacred by a band of Colonel John Chivington's Colorado volunteers at Sand Creek, Colorado. The causes of the Sand Creek massacre were rooted in the long conflict for control of the Great Plains of eastern Colorado.

  • Johnson issues Reconstruction proclamation

    President Andrew Johnson implemented a plan of Reconstruction that gave the white South a free hand in regulating the transition from slavery to freedom and offered no role to blacks in the politics of the South.

  • Southern states pass Black Codes

    Sometimes called Black Laws, were laws governing the conduct of African Americans (free blacks). The best known of them were passed by Southern states, after the American Civil War, in order to restrict African Americans' freedom, and to compel them to work for low wages
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    Andrew Johnson President

  • Hampton Roads Conference

    This was a peace conference held between the United States and the Confederate States aboard the steamboat River Queen in Hampton Roads, Virginia, to discuss terms to end the American Civil War.
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    Freedmen’s Bureau

    Formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, was established by Congress to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War.

  • Lee Surrenders to Grant at Appomattox

    In Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War.

  • Lincoln Assassinated

    Occurring near the end of the American Civil War, the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy intended by John Wilkes Booth to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government. It lead to the greatest manhunt of american history.

  • 13th amendment ratified

    It abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

  • Ku Klux Klan founded

    Founded in Pulaski, Tennessee.

  • First working transatlantic telegraph

  • Ex parte Milligan case

    A case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not establish military courts to try civilians except where civil courts were no longer functioning in an actual theatre of war.

  • American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) created

    It was the first and only humane society in the Western Hemisphere, and its formation prompted the New York State Legislature to pass the country's first effective anti-cruelty law.
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    National Labor Union organized

    A political-action movement that sought to improve working conditions through legislative reform rather than through collective bargaining.

  • Congress passes CIvil Rights Bill over Johnson’s veto

    It was mainly intended, in the wake of the American Civil War, to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the United States. This legislation was passed by Congress in 1865 and vetoed by United States President Andrew Johnson.

  • Congress passes 14th amendment

    It extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to former slaves

  • Johnson pardons Confederate leaders

  • Reconstruction Acts

    These acts laid out the process for readmitting Southern states into the Union.

  • Tenure of Office Act

    It was a United States federal law, in force from 1867 to 1887, that was intended to restrict the power of the president to remove certain office-holders without the approval of the Senate. The law was enacted over the veto of President Andrew Johnson.

  • United States purchases Alaska from Russia

    This 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.

  • National Grange organized

    Its aim was to advance the political, economic, and social interests of the nation's farmers.

  • Johnson impeached and acquitted

    1st president to be impeached.

  • Grant defeats Seymour for presidency

    Grant defeated Horatio Seymour of the Democratic Party. It was the first presidential election to take place after the conclusion of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery.
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    Ulysses S. Grant President

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    Gilded Age

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    Congress refuses to seat Southern congressmen

    The House of Representatives refused to seat over 30 Southern Democratic candidates declared the winner by their states because the House Elections Committee concluded that fraud, violence, or intimidation had been used against black voters, or, in some cases, that the election statutes of the states themselves were unconstitutional.

  • Transcontinental railroad joined near Ogden, Utah

  • Fisk and Gould corner gold market

    It is known as Black Friday because of the panic caused in New York by two unscrupulous speculators, James Fisk and Jay Gould. They tried to corner the gold market on the New York Gold Exchange, and would have succeeded but for the personal intervention of President Ulysses S. Grant.

  • Knights of Labor organized

    The first important national labour organization in the United States

  • 15th amendment ratified

    It granted African American men the right to vote.

  • Woodhull and Clafin’s Weekly published

    Woodhull created Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly, a radical publication, in which she expressed her ideas on a variety of activist topics. The journal also published the first English translation of Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto.
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    Force Acts

    A series of four acts passed by Republican Reconstruction supporters in the Congress between to protect the constitutional rights guaranteed to blacks by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

  • Wyoming Territory grants women right to vote

  • Standard Oil Company organized

    The Standard Oil Trust was formed in 1863 by John D. Rockefeller. He built up the company through 1868 to become the largest oil refinery firm in the world. In 1870, the company was renamed Standard Oil Company, after which Rockefeller decided to buy up all the other competition and form them into one large company.

  • Barnum and Bailey first join to stage “Greatest Show on Earth”

  • Metaphysical Club meets in Cambridge Massachusetts

  • Tweed scandal in New York

    Tweed was convicted for stealing an amount estimated by an aldermen's committee in 1877 at between $25 million and $45 million from New York City taxpayers through political corruption, although later estimates ranged as high as $200 million. Unable to make bail, he escaped from jail once, but was returned to custody.

  • Credit Mobilier scandal exposed

    Crédit Mobilier Scandal, in U.S. history, illegal manipulation of contracts by a construction and finance company associated with the building of the Union Pacific Railroad; the incident established Crédit Mobilier of America as a symbol of post-Civil War corruption.

  • Grant defeats Greeley for presidency

    Despite a split in the Republican Party, incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant defeated Liberal Republican nominee Horace Greeley.

  • Liberal Republicans break with Grant

  • Panic of 1873

    It was the first global depression brought about by industrial capitalism. It began a regular pattern of boom and bust cycles that distinguish our current economic system and which continue to this day.

  • Construction of New York’s Central Park officially completed

  • Comstock Law

    The statute defined contraceptives as obscene and illicit, making it a federal offense to disseminate birth control through the mail or across state lines.

  • Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) organizedWoman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) organized

    It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity."

  • Chautauqua education movement launched

  • Whiskey Ring scandal

    An American scandal involving the diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors.

  • Resumption Act

    It was a law in the United States that restored the nation to the gold standard through the redemption of previously-unbacked United States Notes and reversed inflationary government policies promoted directly after the American Civil War.

  • Civil Rights Act of 1875

    The last of the major Reconstruction statutes, which guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public transportation and public accommodations and service on juries.

  • Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone

    It provided an important device for facilitating human communication.

  • John Hopkins University graduate school established

    It is considered the first research university in the United States
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    Jim Crow era

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    Battle of the Little Bighorn

    It proved to be the height of Native American power during the 19th century. It was also the worst U.S. Army defeat during the Plains Wars.

  • Colorado admitted to Union

  • Hayes-Tilden election standoff and crisis

    It was one of the most contentious and controversial presidential elections in American history, and is known for being the catalyst for the end of Reconstruction.

  • Railroad strikes paralyze nation

    It was the country's first major rail strike and witnessed the first general strike in the nation's history. The strikes and the violence it spawned briefly paralyzed the country's commerce and led governors in ten states to mobilize 60,000 militia members to reopen rail traffic.
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    Rutherford B. Hayes President

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    Nez Perce war

    The conflict, fought between June and October 1877, stemmed from the refusal of several bands of the Nez Perce, dubbed "non-treaty Indians," to give up their ancestral lands in the Pacific Northwest and move to an Indian reservation in Idaho

  • Compromise of 1877

    It was an informal, unwritten deal, that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era.

  • Henry George publishes “Progress and Poverty”

    It is George's first book, which sold several million copies, exceeding all other books sold in the United States except the Bible during the 1890s. It helped spark the Progressive Era and a worldwide social reform movement around an ideology now known as 'Georgism'.

  • Dumbbell tenement introduced

    Created more housing and maximized land profits

  • Mary Baker Eddy establishes Christian Science

  • Salvation Army begins to work in America

  • Edison invents electric light

    The light bulb helped to establish social order after sundown, extended the workday well into the night, and allowed us to navigate and travel safely in the dark. Without the light bulb, there would be no nightlife.

  • Garfield defeats Hancock for presidency

    Republican Garfield's victory was decisive. He won nearly all of the populous Northern states to achieve a majority of 214 electoral votes to 155 for democrat Hancock. Hancock's sweep of the Southern states was not enough for victory, but it cemented his party's dominance of the region for generations.

  • Booker T. Washington becomes head of Tuskegee Institute

  • Helen Hunt Jackson publishes “A Century of Dishonor”

    It exposed the many wrongs perpetrated by her country, she hoped “to redeem the name of the United States from the stain of a century of dishonor.”
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    James A. Garfield President

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    Chester A. Arthur President

  • American Red Cross founded

    It shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40 percent of the nation's blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families.

  • Garfield Assassinated; Arthur assumes presidency

  • Henry James publishes “The Portrait of a Lady”

  • Chinese Exclusion Act

    The first immigration law that excluded an entire ethnic group.

  • First immigration-restriction laws passed

  • Civil Rights Cases

    These were a group of five cases in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments did not empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals.

  • Metropolitan Opera House built in New York

  • Brooklyn Bridge completed

    It connected the great cities of New York and Brooklyn for the first time in history

  • Federal Government Outlaws Indian Sun Dance

    The Sun Dance was the most important religious ceremony of the Plains Indians of North America and, for nomadic peoples, an occasion when otherwise independent bands gathered to reaffirm their basic beliefs about the universe and the supernatural through rituals of personal and community sacrifice.

  • Cleveland defeats Blaine for presidency

    Democrat Grover Cleveland defeated Republican James G. Blaine

  • Louis Sullivan builds first skyscraper, in Chicago

  • Linotype invented

    These machines revolutionized the newspaper industry by allowing newspapers to run longer than just a few pages
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    Grover Cleveland President

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    Local Chapters of Farmers’ Alliance formed

  • ark Twain publishes “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

    A straightforward story about a boy and a runaway slave floating down the Mississippi River. But underneath is a subversive confrontation of slavery and racism.

  • Wabash case

    It was a Supreme Court decision that severely limited the rights of states to control or impede interstate commerce. It led to the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

  • Haymarket Square bombing

    The killing and wounding of several workers by the Chicago police during a strike the day before at the McCormick Reaper Works.

  • American Federation of Labor formed

  • Hatch Act supplements Morrill Act

  • Interstate Commerce Act

    It was a United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates.

  • Dawes Severalty Act

    This act imposed a new system of land managing in which the traditional tribal ownership of land could no longer be used. Momaday accused it of being uprooting for Native Americans and to destroy their traditions.

  • American Protective Association (APA) formed

    It was the largest anti-Catholic organization in the United States during the late nineteenth century. Its purpose was to defend “true Americanism” and fight the growing power of the Catholic Church in America.

  • Edward Bellamy publishes “Looking Backward”

    Bellamy described the United States under an ideal socialist system that featured cooperation, brotherhood, and an industry geared to human need.

  • American all-star baseball team tours world

  • Harrison defeats Cleveland for presidency

    Republican nominee Benjamin Harrison, a former Senator from Indiana, defeated incumbent Democratic President Grover Cleveland of New York.
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    Benjamin Harrison President

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    “Billion-Dollar” Congress

    The Fifty-first United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government.

  • Oklahoma opened to U.S. citizen settlement

  • Jane Addams founds Hull House in Chicago

    It was one of Chicago's largest nonprofit social welfare organizations. Its mission was to improve social conditions for underserved people and communities by providing creative, innovative programs and by advocating for related public policy reforms.
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    North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming admitted to Union

  • William James publishes “The Principles of Psychology”

    James argued that the purpose of education is to organize the child's powers of conduct so as to fit him to his social and physical environment.

  • Census Bureau declares frontier line ended

  • Emergence of the People’s party (Populists)

  • Alfred Thayer Mahan publishes “The Influence of Sea Power upon History"

    He argued that sea power was the key to military and economic expansion. The book was an instant classic that proved highly influential in both American and foreign circles.

  • National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) founded

    Founded to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States.

  • Sherman Anti-Trust Act

    The first legislation enacted by the U.S. Congress to curb concentrations of power that interfere with trade and reduce economic competition. It was named for U.S. Sen. John Sherman of Ohio, who was an expert on the regulation of commerce.

  • Sherman Silver Purchase Act

    It was passed by the U.S. Congress to supplant the Bland-Allison Act of 1878. It not only required the U.S. government to purchase nearly twice as much silver as before, but also added substantially to the amount of money already in circulation. It was repealed in 1893

  • McKinley Tariff Act

    It was passed and increased average duties across all imports from 38% to 49.5%.

  • Battle of Wounded Knee

    The battle between U.S. military troops and Lakota Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota which resulted in the deaths of approximately 300 Sioux men, women, and children. The massacre at Wounded Knee was the last major battle of the Indian Wars of the late 19th century.

  • Stanford University opens

  • Basketball invented

  • Populist party candidate James B. Weaver polls more than 1 million votes in presidential election

  • Sierra Club founded

    It is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States

  • Homestead steel strike

  • Coeur d-Alene (Idaho) silver miners’ strike

  • Cleveland defeats Harrison and Weaver to regain presidency

  • People’s party candidate James B. Weaver wins twenty-two electoral votes

  • Depression of 1893 begins

    It was one of the worst in American history with the unemployment rate exceeding ten percent for half a decade.

  • Republicans regain House of Representatives

  • Lillian wald opens Henry Street Settlement In New York

  • Anti-Saloon League formed

    The leading organization lobbying for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century.

  • Cleveland refuses Hawaii annexation

    Cleveland was an outspoken anti-imperialist and thought Americans had acted shamefully in Hawaii. He withdrew the annexation treaty from the Senate and ordered an investigation into potential wrongdoings. Cleveland aimed to restore Liliuokalani to her throne, but American public sentiment strongly favored annexation.

  • Frederick Jackson Turner publishes “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”

    It is a seminal essay by the American historian Frederick Jackson Turner which advanced the Frontier Thesis of American history.
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    Grover Cleveland President

  • White planter revolt in Hawaii

    Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown when a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate. The coup led to the dissolving of the Kingdom of Hawaii two years later, its annexation as a U.S. territory and eventual admission as the 50th state in the union.
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    World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicag

    Celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's voyage to America.

  • “Coxey’s Army” marches on Washington Pullman strike

    It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington, and the expression "Enough food to feed Coxey's Army" originates from this march.

  • J.P. Morgan’s baking syndicate loans $65 million in gold to federal government

  • Stephen Crane publishes “The Red Badge of Courage”

    It is considered to be Crane’s masterwork because of its perceptive depiction of warfare and of a soldier's psychological turmoil.

  • Plessy v. Ferguson legitimizes “separate but equal” doctrine

  • Library of Congress opens

  • Robert Gould Shaw Memorial erected on Boston Common

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    William Mckinley President

  • Klondike Gold Rush begins

  • Dingley Tariff Act

    It increased duties by an average of 57 percent. Tariff rates were hiked on sugar, salt, tin cans, glassware, and tobacco, as well as on iron and steel, steel rails, petroleum, lead, copper, locomotives, matches, whisky, and leather goods.

  • Charlotte Perkins Gilman publishes “Women and Economics”

  • Teller Amendment

    It proclaimed that the United States would help the Cuban people gain their freedom from Spain but would not annex the island after victory.

  • Dewey’s victory at Manila Bay

    It cleared the way for the U.S. occupation of Manila in August and the eventual transfer of the Philippines from Spanish to American control.

  • Hawaii annexed

  • Hawaii receives full territorial status

  • Kate Chopin publishes “The Awakening”

    It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism, generating a mixed reaction from contemporary readers and critics.

  • National Consumers League founded

    Its purpose was to champion the rights of workers and to advocate for safe consumer products.

  • First American Open Door note

    It was significant in its attempt by the United States to establish an international protocol of equal privileges for all countries trading with China and to support China's territorial and administrative integrity.

  • Theodore Dreiser publishes “Sister Carrie”

    It was a movement away from the emphasis on morals of the Victorian era and focused more on realism and the base instincts of humans.

  • Gold Standard Act

    It was passed to prevent the country from printing too much money and running out of gold. A gold standard restricts the Federal Reserve from enacting policies which significantly alters the growth of the money supply, which in turn limits the inflation rate of a country. It was also an international standard determining the value of a country's currency in terms of other countries' currencies.

  • Second Open Door note

    It stressed the importance of preserving China's territorial and administrative integrity.

  • McKinley defeats Bryan for presidency

    Former Governor William McKinley, the Republican candidate, defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan.

  • Commission system established in Galveston, Texas

  • Supreme Court Insular Cases

    It authorized the colonial regime created by Congress, which allowed the United States to continue its administration—and exploitation—of the territories acquired from Spain after the Spanish–American War.

  • Progressive Robert La Follette elected governor of Wisconsin

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    Theodore Roosevelt President

  • United States Steel Corporation formed

    At the beginning of the 20th century, a number of businessmen were involved in the formation of United States Steel Corporation, including Andrew Carnegie, Elbert H. Gary, Charles M. Schwab, and J.P. Morgan.

  • American Socialist party formed

  • McKinley Assassinated; Roosevelt becomes president

  • Lincoln Steffens and Ida Tarbell publish muckraking exposés

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    Anthracite coal strike

    It was one of America's largest industrial strikes and threatened a national coal shortage.

  • Newlands Act

    Commonly known as the Reclamation Act, this Act aims to provide financial backing to farmers who are unable to carry out their irrigation due to financial constraints.

  • Women’s Trade Union League founded

  • First story-sequence motion picture

  • Department of Commerce and Labor established

    It investigates business practices, assure fair trade, address labor issues, and aid commerce.

  • Elkins Act

    The Act authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to impose heavy fines on railroads that offered rebates, and upon the shippers that accepted these rebates.

  • Wright brothers fly first airplane

    Enabled faster transportation of people and goods.

  • Northern Securities Case

    It overturned the previous decision of United States vs E. C. Knight Co. in which the Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act was insufficient in regulating that monopoly.

  • Roosevelt defeats Alton B. Parker for presidency

    Republican President Theodore Roosevelt defeated the Democratic nominee, Alton B. Parker. Roosevelt's victory made him the first president to win a term in his own right after having ascended to the presidency upon the death of his predecessor, William McKinley.

  • Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine

    It was used to justify US intervention throughout the Western hemisphere.

  • Lochner v. New York

    A landmark U.S. labor law case in the US Supreme Court, holding that limits to working time violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
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    Roosevelt arranges Algeciras Conference

    An international conference of the great European powers and the United States, held at Algeciras, Spain, to discuss France's relationship to the government of Morocco.An international conference of the great European powers and the United States, held at Algeciras, Spain, to discuss France's relationship to the government of Morocco.

  • Upton Sinclair publishes “The Jungle”

    It exposed the appalling working conditions in the meat-packing industry. His description of diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat shocked the public and led to new federal food safety laws.

  • Meat Inspection Act

    An American law that makes it a crime to adulterate or misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food, and ensures that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under strictly regulated sanitary conditions.

  • Hepburn Act

    It gave the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) the power to set maximum railroad rates and extended its jurisdiction. This led to the discontinuation of free passes to loyal shippers.

  • Pure Food and Drug Act

    It prohibited the sale of misbranded or adulterated food and drugs in interstate commerce and laid a foundation for the nation's first consumer protection agency, the Food and Drug Administration.

  • Henry Adams privately publishes “The Education of Henry Adams”

    It is an autobiography that records the struggle of Bostonian Henry Adams in his later years, to come to terms with the dawning 20th century, so different from the world of his youth. It is also a sharp critique of 19th-century educational theory and practice.

  • “Roosevelt panic”

    The first worldwide financial crisis of the twentieth century. It transformed a recession into a contraction surpassed in severity only by the Great Depression.

  • Oklahoma admitted into the Union

  • Muller v. Oregon

    It was one of the most important U.S. Supreme Court cases of the Progressive Era, upheld an Oregon law limiting the workday for female wage earners to ten hours. The case established a precedent in 1908 to expand the reach of state activity into the realm of protective labor legislation.

  • Aldrich-Vreeland Act

    An emergency currency law enacted as a result of the bankers' panic of 1907. Its aim was to give elasticity to the currency by permitting national banks to issue additional currency on bonds of states, cities, towns, and counties, as well as commercial paper.

  • Henry Ford introduces Model T

    Conceived by Henry Ford as practical, affordable transportation for the common man, it quickly became prized for its low cost, durability, versatility, and ease of maintenance.

  • Taft defeats Bryan for presidency

    Secretary of War and Republican Party nominee William Howard Taft defeated three-time Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan.

  • Root-Takahira agreement

    It averted a drift toward possible war by mutually acknowledging certain international policies and spheres of influence in the Pacific.
  • Period: to

    William Howard Taft President

  • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded

    It is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed as a bi-racial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey and Ida B. Wells.

  • Payne-Aldrich Tariff

    The Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act is famous for the rift it caused in the Republican Party as well as the damage it did to the presidency of William Taft. When speaking economically, the act was a compromise over tariff rates.

  • Washington State grants woman suffrage

  • Ballinger-Pinchot affair

    In August, speaking at the annual meeting of the National Irrigation Congress in Spokane, Washington, Pinchot accused Ballinger of siding with private trusts in his handling of water power issues.

  • Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire

    It killed 146 garment workers, most of them young immigrant women in New York City. It was a tragedy that opened the nation's eyes to poor working conditions in garment factories and other workplaces, and set in motion a historic era of labor reforms.

  • Standard Oil antitrust case

    The Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil Company, ruling it was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

  • California grants woman suffrage

  • U.S. Steel Corporation antitrust suit

    The Taft administration filed suit in federal court against the United States Steel Corporation for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.

  • Children’s Bureau established in Department of Labor

    The stated purpose of the new Bureau was to investigate and report "upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people."

  • Taft wins Republican nomination over Roosevelt

  • 17th Amendment passed

    Allowed for the direct election of U.S. senators.

  • Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon grant woman suffrage

  • Wilson defeats Taft and Roosevelt for presidency

    Democratic Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey unseated Republican President William Howard Taft and defeated former President Theodore Roosevelt.

  • San Francisco decides to build Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

  • Period: to

    Woodrow Wilson President

  • 16th Amendment (income tax) ratified

  • Underwood Tariff Act

    Its purpose was to reduce levies on manufactured and semi-manufactured goods and to eliminate duties on most raw materials.

  • Federal Reserve Act

    Developed to establish economic stability in the United States by introducing a central bank to oversee monetary policy.

  • Clayton Anti-Trust Act

    Intended to strengthen earlier antitrust legislation, the act prohibits anticompetitive mergers, predatory and discriminatory pricing, and other forms of unethical corporate behavior.

  • Federal Trade Commission established

    Its purpose was to prevent unfair methods of competition in commerce as part of the battle to “bust the trusts.”

  • La Follette Seaman’s Act

    It was established in order to ease sailors of their brutal treatment at sea and provide them with relief, an additional gain for laborers during the progressive wave. It required decent treatment of sailors and also a living wage on American merchant ships.

  • Federal Farm Loan Act

    It was designed to implement the recommendations of the farming commissions to help small farmers and ranchers by making it easier for farmers to secure loans, obtain credit, restore free enterprise and a competitive market for agriculture.

  • Brandeis appointed to Supreme Court

  • Council of National Defense established

    An organization formed during World War I to coordinate resources and industry in support of the war effort, including the coordination of transportation, industrial and farm production, financial support for the war, and public morale.

  • Adamson Act

    It was a United States federal law passed that established an eight-hour workday, with additional pay for overtime work, for interstate railroad workers.

  • Workingmen’s Compensation Act

    It provides financial assistance to federal employees who have been injured at work. It also gives injured workers access to medical services and rehabilitation, if needed, as well as providing help to their families.

  • Wilson defeats Hughes for presidency

    Democratic President Woodrow Wilson defeated Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate.

  • Railroads placed under federal control

  • Zimmerman note

    It forced United States President Woodrow Wilson to reverse his initial position on American involvement in the European conflict and commit the United States to the war against Germany. Essentially forced America into World War I.

  • Wilson calls for “peace without victory” in World War I

  • Puerto Ricans granted U.S. citizenship

  • United States buys Virgin Islands from Denmark

  • Period: to

    U.S. engages in World War I

  • Espionage Act of 1917

    Enacted soon after the United States entered World War I in 1917, the Espionage Act prohibited individuals from expressing or publishing opinions that would interfere with the U.S. military's efforts to defeat Germany and its allies.

  • Esch-Cummins Transportation Act

    It was a United States federal law that returned railroads to private operation after World War I, with much regulation.

  • Esch-Cummins Transportation Act

    It was a United States federal law that returned railroads to private operation after World War I, with much regulation.
  • Period: to

    Worldwide Influenza pandemic

    It killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history.

  • Wilson Proposes Fourteen Points

    Set as a blueprint for world peace that was to be used for peace negotiations after World War I.

  • Sedition Act of 1918

    This act made it a federal offense to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the Constitution, the government, the American uniform, or the flag. The government prosecuted over 2,100 people under these acts.

  • Battle of Chateau-Thierry

    It was a proving ground for Pershing's American Expeditionary Force. The Germans attacked, the American Expeditionary Forces retaliated with a counter-assault, and the enemy was repulsed and driven back commandingly. This battle would later be designated as the turning point of World War I.
  • Period: to

    Second Battle of the Marne

    It marked the turning of the tide in World War I. It began with the last German offensive of the conflict and was quickly followed by the first allied offensive victory of 1918.
  • Period: to

    Meuse-Argonne offensive

    The largest operations of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, with over a million American soldiers participating. It was also the deadliest campaign in American history, resulting in over 26,000 soldiers being killed in action and over 120,000 total casualties.

  • Armistice ends World War I

  • Anderson publishes “Winesburg, Ohio”

    The best- received of Anderson's works, and is still regarded as a masterpiece of American writing. In his novel, Anderson pierces this idealistic veil, exposing the loneliness and alienation that permeate life in a small, American town.
  • Period: to

    “Red scare”

    The promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism or anarchism by a society or state.
  • Period: to

    “Red scare”

    The promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism or anarchism by a society or state post World War I

  • 18th Amendment (prohibition of alcohol) ratified

  • Period: to

    Seattle general strike

    A five-day general work stoppage by more than 65,000 workers in the city of Seattle, Washington. Dissatisfied workers in several unions began the strike to gain higher wages after two years of World War I wage controls.

  • American Legion founded

    It was chartered by Congress as a patriotic veterans organization. Focusing on service to veterans, servicemembers and communities, the Legion evolved from a group of war-weary veterans of World War I into one of the most influential nonprofit groups in the United States.
  • Period: to

    Chicago race riot

    African-American teenager drowned in Lake Michigan after violating the unofficial segregation of Chicago’s beaches and being stoned by a group of white youths. His death, and the police’s refusal to arrest the white man whom eyewitnesses identified as causing it, sparked a week of rioting between gangs of black and white Chicagoans, concentrated on the South Side neighborhood surrounding the stockyards.
  • Period: to

    Chicago race riot

    African-American teenager drowned in Lake Michigan after violating the unofficial segregation of Chicago’s beaches and being stoned by a group of white youths. His death, and the police’s refusal to arrest the white man whom eyewitnesses identified as causing it, sparked a week of rioting between gangs of black and white Chicagoans, concentrated on the South Side neighborhood surrounding the stockyards.

  • Wilson’s pro-League tour and collapse

  • Volstead Act

    Formally National Prohibition Act, U.S. law enacted to provide enforcement for the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages.

  • Merchant Marine Act

    It was a United States federal statute that provides for the promotion and maintenance of the American merchant marine. Among other purposes, the law regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports.

  • Sinclair Lewis publishes “Main Street”

    Satirizing small town life, Main Street is perhaps Sinclair Lewis's most famous book, and led in part to his eventual 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature. Highly acclaimed upon publication, Main Street remains a recognized American classic.

  • Sinclair Lewis publishes “Main Street”

    Satirizing small town life, Main Street is perhaps Sinclair Lewis's most famous book, and led in part to his eventual 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature. Highly acclaimed upon publication, Main Street remains a recognized American classic.

  • Merchant Marine Act

    It was a United States federal statute that provides for the promotion and maintenance of the American merchant marine. Among other purposes, the law regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports.

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes “This Side of Paradise”

    It is the debut novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1920. The book examines the lives and morality of post–World War I youth. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status seeking, and takes its title from a line of Rupert Brooke's poem Tiare Tahiti.

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes “This Side of Paradise”

    It is the debut novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1920. The book examines the lives and morality of post–World War I youth. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status seeking, and takes its title from a line of Rupert Brooke's poem Tiare Tahiti.

  • Women’s Bureau established in Department of Labor

    It was created to formulate standards and policies to promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment.

  • Women’s Bureau established in Department of Labor

    It was created to formulate standards and policies to promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment.

  • 19th Amendment ratified

    It granted American women the right to vote, a right known as women's suffrage.

  • 19th Amendment ratified

    It granted American women the right to vote, a right known as women's suffrage.

  • Radio broadcasting begins

    Pittsburgh, KDKA begins broadcasting first weekly radio program. The station KDKA made the nation's first commercial broadcast.

  • Harding defeats Cox for presidency

    Harding virtually ignored Cox in the race and essentially campaigned against Wilson by calling for a "return to normalcy". Harding won a landslide victory, sweeping every state outside of the South and becoming the first Republican since the end of Reconstruction to win a former state of the Confederacy.

  • Radio broadcasting begins

    Pittsburgh, KDKA begins broadcasting first weekly radio program. The station KDKA made the nation's first commercial broadcast.

  • Harding defeats Cox for presidency

    Harding virtually ignored Cox in the race and essentially campaigned against Wilson by calling for a "return to normalcy". Harding won a landslide victory, sweeping every state outside of the South and becoming the first Republican since the end of Reconstruction to win a former state of the Confederacy.
  • Period: to

    Warren G. Harding President

  • Period: to

    Teapot Dome Scandal

    Convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies, Albert Bacon Fall became the first presidential cabinet member to go to prison; no one was convicted of paying the bribes. Before the Watergate scandal, Teapot Dome was regarded as the "greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics".

  • Emergency Quota Act

    It established the nation's first numerical limits on the number of immigrants who could enter the United States.

  • Emergency Quota Act

    It established the nation's first numerical limits on the number of immigrants who could enter the United States.

  • Eliot publishes “The Waste Land”

    As Eliot radically juxtaposes these images of modern industrial society against allusions to mythology, he uses the disjointed and chaotic structure of The Waste Land to demonstrate the difficulty of finding meaning in the modern world.

  • Sinclair Lewis publishes “Babbitt”

    It is a satirical novel about American culture and society that critiques the vacuity of middle class life and the social pressure toward conformity. The controversy provoked by Babbitt was influential in the decision to award the Nobel Prize in Literature to Lewis in 1930.

  • Capper-Volstead Act

    This act allows cooperatives and their members to act together “in collectively processing, preparing for market, handling, and marketing in interstate and foreign commerce” their agricultural products.

  • Capper-Volstead Act

    This act allows cooperatives and their members to act together “in collectively processing, preparing for market, handling, and marketing in interstate and foreign commerce” their agricultural products.

  • Fordney-McCumber Tariff Law

    It was a law that raised American tariffs on many imported goods to protect factories and farms. The US Congress displayed a pro-business attitude in passing the tariff and in promoting foreign trade by providing huge loans to Europe. That, in turn, bought more US goods.

  • Adkins v. Children’s Hospital

    The Supreme Court ruled that a minimum wage law for women violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment because it abridged a citizen's right to freely contract labor.

  • Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) proposed

    It was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. It seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in matters of divorce, property, employment, and other matters.
  • Period: to

    Calvin Coolidge President

  • Harding dies; Coolidge assumes presidency

  • Immigration Act of 1924

    Ths act limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census.

  • Adjusted Compensation Act for veterans

    Popularly known as the “Bonus Act,” promised veterans compensation for wages lost during their World War I service. Payments, however, were not going to be issued until 1945.

  • Indians granted U.S. citizenship

  • Dawes Plan for international finance

    It established how much money Germany had to repay as a consequence of its loss in the First World War. At the same time, the US bond market issued international loans, providing a significant source of capital to the German economy.

  • Coollidge wins three-way presidential election

    In a three-way contest, incumbent Republican President Calvin Coolidge won election to a full term against democrat, John W. Davis, and progressive, Robert M. La Follette.

  • Dresier publishes “An American Tragedy”

    Dreiser created a poignant yet powerful novel of youthful loneliness in industrial society and of the American mirage that beckons some of the young to disaster.

  • Hughes publishes “The Weary Blues”

    It pioneers the jazz aesthetic

  • Fitzgerald publishes “The Great Gatsby”

    Fitzgerald was the most famous chronicler of 1920s America, an era that he dubbed “the Jazz Age.” The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest literary documents of this period, in which the American economy soared, bringing unprecedented levels of prosperity to the nation. It universally represents vitality, wealth and growth.

  • Scopes Trial

    John Scopes was found guilty but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. The true importance of the trial was not the verdict, however; the Scopes trial increased American awareness and interest in the issue of teaching theology and/or modern science in public schools.

  • Ernest Hemingway publishes “The Sun Also Rises”

    The novel portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights.

  • First talking motion picture, “The Jazz Singer”

    It is the first feature-length motion picture with not only a synchronized recorded music score but also lip-synchronous singing and speech in several isolated sequences. Its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and ended the silent film era. It was produced by Warner Bros.

  • Charles Lindbergh flies solo across the Atlantic

    He becomes the first pilot to solo a nonstop trans-Atlantic flight

  • Sacco and Vanzetti executed

    Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Charlestown State Prison, Boston, Massachusetts. Sacco and Vanzetti had been convicted and sentenced to death for murdering two people during an armed robbery at a shoe factory seven years earlier.

  • Show Boat opens on Broadway

    First produced in 1927 by Florenz Ziegfeld. The premiere of Show Boat on Broadway was an important event in the history of American musical theatre. It "was a radical departure in musical storytelling, marrying spectacle with seriousness".

  • Strange Interlude debuts on Broadway

    It is an experimental play in nine acts by American playwright Eugene O'Neill that one the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

  • Hoover defeats Smith for presidency

    Republican Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover defeated the Democratic nominee, Governor Al Smith of New York. Hoover was the last Republican to win a presidential election until 1952.

  • Ernest Hemingway publishes “A Farewell to Arms”

    Its publication ensured Hemingway's place as a modern American writer of considerable stature. The book became his first best-seller, and has been called "the premier American war novel from that debacle World War I.

  • William Faulkner publishes “The Sound and the Fury”

    The Sound and the Fury is a widely influential work of literature. Faulkner has been praised for his ability to recreate the thought process of the human mind. In addition, it is viewed as an essential development in the stream-of-consciousness literary technique.
  • Period: to

    Herbert Hoover President

  • Period: to

    Stock-market crash

    It was a four-day collapse of stock prices. It was the worst decline in U.S. history. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 25%. It act to accelerate the global economic collapse and marked the start of the Great Depression.

  • Hawley-Smoot Tariff

    Formally United States Tariff Act of 1930 was U.S. legislation that raised import duties to protect American businesses and farmers, adding considerable strain to the international economic climate of the Great Depression.

  • Veterans Bureau created

    This was created for the World War I veterans who desperately needed medical attention, hospitals, and employment.

  • Veterans Bureau created

    This was created for the World War I veterans who desperately needed medical attention, hospitals, and employment.

  • Agricultural Marketing Act

    This Act authorized production adjustment programs that were a direct outgrowth of the experience of the Federal Farm Board.

  • Final Emancipation Proclamation

    President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."
  • Period: to

    New York City Draft Riots

    Known at the time as Draft Week, these were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of white working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War.

  • Bureau of the Budget created

    The act created the Bureau of the Budget, now called the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to review funding requests from government departments and to assist the president in formulating the budget.

  • Bureau of the Budget created

    The act created the Bureau of the Budget, now called the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to review funding requests from government departments and to assist the president in formulating the budget.