-
Start of Rice & Indigo Cultivation
The labor-intensive, back-breaking work of planting and harvesting indigo and rice led to a surge in the African slave trade, and with it, both positive and negative impacts on the population, culture and economy of South Carolina. -
Period: to
First Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution transformed economies that had been based on agriculture and handicrafts into economies based on large-scale industry, mechanized manufacturing, and the factory system. New machines, new power sources, and new ways of organizing work made existing industries more productive and efficient. -
Currency Act
The Currency Act, passed in 1764 along with the Sugar Act, prohibited the printing and issuance of paper money by Colonial legislatures. It also set up fines and penalties for members of Colonial government who disobeyed, despite the long-standing currency shortage. Extremely limited the colonists' supply of money. -
Sugar Act
The Sugar Act 1764 or Sugar Act 1763, also known as the American Revenue Act 1764 or the American Duties Act, was a revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on 5 April 1764. -
Stamp Act
On March 22, 1765, British Parliament finally passed the Stamp Act or Duties in American Colonies Act. It required colonists to pay taxes on every page of printed paper they used. The tax also included fees for playing cards, dice, and newspapers. The reaction in the colonies was immediate. -
Quartering Act
The Quartering Acts were two or more Acts of British Parliament requiring local governments of Britain's North American colonies to provide the British soldiers with housing and food. Each of the Quartering Acts was an amendment to the Mutiny Act and required annual renewal by Parliament. -
Townshend Act
To help pay the expenses involved in governing the American colonies, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which initiated taxes on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. -
Intolerable Acts
The Coercive Acts of 1774, known as the Intolerable Acts in the American colonies, were a series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party. -
Establishment of the Bank of the US
It helped fund the public debt left from the American Revolution, facilitated the issuance of a stable national currency, and provided a convenient means of exchange for all the people of the United States. -
Cotton Gin
Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793. It removed seeds from cotton fibers. Now cotton could be processed quickly and cheaply. Resulted in more cotton production and more slaves are needed for more acres of cotton fields. -
Interchangeable Parts
In 1798, Whitney's armory pioneered the use of interchangeable parts, which are nearly identical parts that can be easily mass produced and replaced. The armory was called the Eli Whitney Armory or the Whitneyville Armory. -
The Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase had a tremendous impact on the American economy. Not only did it supply America with a vast amount of natural resources like iron, coal, timber, silver, and gold, it also helped pave the way for creating a nation that stretched from one ocean to another. -
Steamboat
Steamboats completely changed the way Americans in the early 1800's shipped and received goods and how people traveled. A period of rapid growth in the speed and convenience of travel because of new methods of transportation. -
Embargo Act of 1807
Embargo Act, Legislation by the U.S. Congress in December 1807 that closed U.S. ports to all exports and restricted imports from Britain. The act was Pres. Thomas Jefferson's response to British and French interference with neutral U.S. merchant ships during the Napoleonic Wars. -
Construction of the National Road
The National Road, in many places known as Route 40, was built between 1811 and 1834 to reach the western settlements. It was the first federally funded road in U.S. history. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson believed that a trans-Appalachian road was necessary for unifying the young country. -
Period: to
Market Revolution
The Market Revolution inspired the creation of capitalist economies and led to expansion in urbanization. Some of the effects of the Market Revolution were the change in workers' lives in factories. -
McCormick Reaper
Made farming more efficient and also allowed for corporate farming. The reaper replaced scythes as the preferred method of cutting crops for harvest, and its was much more efficient as well as much more quick. -
California Gold Rush
It stimulated rapid agricultural expansion, quickened the volume of trade and commerce, and created demands for new forms of transportation. Since 1848, the Gold Rush has always had a romantic aura, of course. But it should not be forgotten that it was also a major chapter in California's economic development. -
Gadsden Purchase
Gadsden's Purchase provided the land necessary for a southern transcontinental railroad and attempted to resolve conflicts that lingered after the Mexican-American War. -
Period: to
Civil War
The North's population and urbanization increased. Business and industry became dominant in the northern economy. The South, on the other hand, was devastated financially. Cities and plantations were destroyed. -
Homestead Act
To help develop the American West and spur economic growth, Congress passed the Homestead Act of 1862, which provided 160 acres of federal land to anyone who agreed to farm the land. The act distributed millions of acres of western land to individual settlers. -
Homestead Act
To help develop the American West and spur economic growth, Congress passed the Homestead Act of 1862, which provided 160 acres of federal land to anyone who agreed to farm the land. The act distributed millions of acres of western land to individual settlers. -
Period: to
Reconstruction Era
Southern agriculture gradually changed and improved. New methods of farming allowed people in the South to raise larger crops. Northerners invested large sums of money to build railroads and factories in the South. As a result, people began moving from the farms to the cities looking for jobs. -
Purchase of Alaska
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. -
Typewriter
Ushered in a much greater popularity and relevancy of newspapers, magazines, typed letters and reports, and made writing much faster and easier. -
Transcontinental Railroad
Just as it opened the markets of the west coast and Asia to the east, it brought products of eastern industry to the growing populace beyond the Mississippi. The railroad ensured a production boom, as industry mined the vast resources of the middle and western continent for use in production. -
Standard Oil Company
The Standard Oil Company consolidated and concerted the operations of the previously competing enterprises. This allowed Rockefeller to corner virtually the entire world petroleum market. Used horizontal integration. -
Telephone
The invention of the telephone not only revolutionized how people were able to personally talk with one another, but also changed the way business was conducted and created a great boost for American and even global economics. -
Great Railroad Strike
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, sometimes referred to as the Great Upheaval, began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad cut wages for the third time in a year. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was the first strike that spread across multiple states in the US. -
Lightbulb
Made it possible for people to light their homes and workplaces with electric light, greatly improving the efficiency and convenience of lighting. -
Skyscraper
The increase in urban commerce in the United States in the second half of the 19th century augmented the need for city business space. -
Pullman Strike
The impacts of the Pullman Strike were national in scope. As a massive and truly national strike, it demonstrated the power of national labor and forced consideration about labor action and corporate paternalism. -
Homestead Strike
While the 1892 Homestead Steel Strike only lasted four months, it created a lasting impact on how the nation viewed the relationship between labor and management and cemented the reputation of two of America's great Industrialists – Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. -
Radio
Radio encouraged the growth of national popular music stars and brought regional sounds to wider audiences. The effects of early radio programs can be felt both in modern popular music and in television programming. The Fairness Doctrine was created to ensure fair coverage of issues over the airwaves. -
Gold Standard Act
An Act To define and fix the standard of value, to maintain the parity of all forms of money issued or coined by the United States, to refund the public debt, and for other purposes. United States notes became redeemable for gold at the historical rate of $20.67 per ounce. -
Airplane
The airplane helped people deliver crops and other items faster and more efficiently. The airplane allowed people to travel larger distances in shorter amounts of time. It could also hold more people instead of using steamboats and trains. Allowed for the strengthening of the US military. -
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is indeed a critical cornerstone of global maritime transportation. It serves as a vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, enabling ships to avoid the lengthy and hazardous voyage around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America. As one of the great engineering feats of the time, it reduced shipping costs by cutting more than 7,000 miles and helped extend U.S. naval power by allowing the fleets to move between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. -
Assembly Line
The assembly line was a pivotal invention of the Industrial Revolution that exponentially developed the automobile industry starting in the early 1900's with its impact still present today. The assembly line opened the door for more technology, evolved over time to improve efficiency and positively affected society. -
16th Amendment
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. -
Federal Reserve System (1913)
The Federal Reserve System is the central bank of the United States. Founded by an act of Congress in 1913, the Federal Reserve's primary purpose was to enhance the stability of the American banking system. Established the country's central banking system, which is responsible for the nation's monetary policy by regulating the supply of money and interest rates. -
Revenue Act of 1924
The Revenue Act of 1924 established the Board of Tax Appeals to adjudicate disputes involving the federal income and profits tax law. Originally housed within the IRS headquarters building, design for a purpose-built courthouse began in 1965 due to overcrowding at the IRS. -
Television
The invention of television has impacted American society positively, because it helps spread information faster and influences the way people think about important social issues, it provides cultural experiences and can help broaden viewer 's perspectives, and it entertains and brings communities together. -
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash or the Crash of '29, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It began in September, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed, and ended in mid-November. -
Period: to
Great Depression
At the height of the Depression in 1933, 24.9% of the nation's total work force, 12,830,000 people, were unemployed. Wage income for workers who were lucky enough to have kept their jobs fell 42.5% between 1929 and 1933. It was the worst economic disaster in American history. -
Period: to
World War II
America's response to World War II was the most extraordinary mobilization of an idle economy in the history of the world. During the war 17 million new civilian jobs were created, industrial productivity increased by 96 percent, and corporate profits after taxes doubled. -
Atomic Bomb
The discovery and harnessing of atomic energy not only served to bring World War II to a rapid and fiery end, but it also placed the United States in a position of global power not held by any other nation following the war's end. -
Taft-Hartley Act
The Taft-Hartley Act is a 1947 U.S. federal law that extended and modified the 1935 Wagner Act. It prohibits certain union practices and requires disclosure of certain financial and political activities by unions. The bill was initially vetoed by President Truman, but Congress overrode the veto. -
Nixon Wage and Price Controls
Nixon issued Executive Order 11615 (pursuant to the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970), imposing a 90-day freeze on wages and prices in order to counter inflation. This was the first time the U.S. government had enacted wage and price controls since World War II. -
Oil Embargo
On October 19, 1973, immediately following President Nixon's request for Congress to make available $2.2 billion in emergency aid to Israel for the conflict known as the Yom Kippur War, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) instituted an oil embargo on the United States (Reich 1995). Ended the US's economic prosperity that had been considered the greatest of the time. -
Tax Reform Act of 1986
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 lowered the top tax rate for ordinary income from 50% to 28% and raised the bottom tax rate from 11% to 15%. This was the first time in U.S. income tax history that the top tax rate was lowered and the bottom rate was increased at the same time. -
NAFTA
The North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented in 1994 to encourage trade between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. NAFTA reduced or eliminated tariffs on imports and exports between the three participating countries, creating a huge free-trade zone. -
Bush's Tax Cuts
In 2001, President Bush proposed and signed the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. This legislation: Reduced tax rates for every American who pays income taxes, including creating a new 10 percent tax bracket. Doubled the child tax credit to $1,000 by 2010. -
Housing Bubble Bursts
In March 2007, the United States' subprime mortgage industry collapsed due to higher-than-expected home foreclosure rates (no verifying source), with more than 25 subprime lenders declaring bankruptcy, announcing significant losses, or putting themselves up for sale. -
Recession of 2008
The Great Recession of 2008 to 2009 was the worst economic downturn in the U.S. since the Great Depression. Domestic product declined 4.3%, the unemployment rate doubled to more than 10%, home prices fell roughly 30% and at its worst point, the S&P 500 was down 57% from its highs. -
Obamacare
In addition to increasing insurance coverage, the Affordable Care Act makes investments in programs designed to reduce the cost and improve the quality of health care. The ACA's deficit-reducing effects will grow over time. CBO estimates that over the decade from 2023 through 2032, the ACA will reduce the deficit by an average of 0.5 percent of GDP each year, corresponding to total deficit reduction of nearly $1.6 trillion over that ten-year period.