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The Passing of the Homestead Act
The Homestead Act offered various incentives to encourage Northern farmers to relocate to the West, starting an age of settlers traveling to newfound Western territory to stake their claim and increase the lands of the United States. -
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, while attending Ford's Theater after the conclusion of the Civil War and his reelection, was shot by Confederate support John Wilkes Booth. His death brought Andrew Johnson to the position of President, a man that was given the Vice President position as a compromise to the Democrats. He went on to obstruct the Radical Reconstruction pushed by many Republican Congressmen. -
Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment
The 14th Amendment upheld and enshrined the Civil Rights Act of 1866, ensuring that all people born or naturalized into the United States would be citizens, codifying the status of recently emancipated slaves. President Johnson opposed the Amendment, as he did with many other Reconstruction-era policies and laws. -
Founding of Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company
Rockefeller's foundation of the Standard Oil company marked the coming period of extraordinary growth among big businesses in the country, as well as monopolization, where companies such as Standard Oil utilized their resources to kick out competition and buy up smaller competitors. -
Alexander Graham Bell's Telephone Patent
The telephone was not first invented by Bell, but his patent was the first to bring about market success and be adopted into many homes and businesses. The telephone marks the start of mass communication, allowing people to speak with one another over large distances, revolutionizing the way people conduct commerce and interact with one another. -
The Election of Rutherford B. Hayes / The Compromise of 1877
The election of Hayes was bitterly contested, with the Democrats threatening to stall the placement of Hayes due to a close electoral count. As such, the Compromise of 1877 was reached with Democratic leadership, giving immense concessions in order to inaugurate Hayes. As a result of the concessions, the Democrats were able to stop any genuine form of Reconstruction, bringing enshrined white supremacy back to the South. -
The Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act stopped Chinese labor from immigrating into the country for a period of 10 years. The Act signaled the start of an era of protectionism, fear of widespread immigration, and a general racist treatment of Asian Americans, especially in the West. -
The Haymarket Affair
The Haymarket Affair began as a protest against a death at an earlier labor rally in support of the 8-hour work day. An unidentified individual threw a bomb at a crowd of police officers, killing one and injuring another. As a result of the ordeal, the Knights of Labor, at the time one of the largest labor organizations, significantly declined and state repression took place, weakening union organizing efforts. -
Founding of the American Federation of Labor (AFL)
The American Federal of Labor, established in the period follow the relative decline of the Knights of Labor, grew to be one of the largest trade union federations in the country, eventually encompassing several million members. The rise of the AFL signaled an era of workers militantly fighting for their rights to a decent life. -
Creation of the Edison General Electric Company
Edison, a prolific inventor of the 19th century, founded his electric company in 1889. Here we see a rise in the use of electrical current to provide various services, in particular light and the rising industrialization. The advent of large scale commercial success of electricity sale brought about a new era of technological growth across the country. -
Wounded Knee Massacre and the end of the Indian Wars
The Wounded Knee Massacre took place in South Dakota, where on the reservation of the Lakota people, US military forces massacred men, women, and children despite the Native American people not trying to fight. This horrific event is seen to be the end of the Indian Wars, a period of resistance by the Native Americans against the encroaching settlers taking over their homes. -
The First Convention of the Populist (People's) Party
The Populist Party, or People's Party, was a political alliance seeking to create a third-party alternative to the Democrats and Republicans who were seen too entrenched in the political establishment, and thus ignoring the plight of the average American, especially farmers. They ran on democratic and progressive measures. -
The Homestead Strike
The Homestead Steel Strike was a militant strike action by workers at one of Andrew Carnegie's many steel factories. Strike-breakers were sent in, and clashes ensued, leaving several death and only ending when federal troops were sent in to restore order. -
The Spanish-American War
The Spanish-American War saw the United States take significant territorial concessions from the decaying Spanish Empire, starting a period of America expanding outside of its continental boundaries, instead embarking on an imperialistic foreign policy of semi-colonization. -
The Assassination of President McKinley
McKinley's assassination by an anarchist led to Theodore Roosevelt to assume the office of President. Roosevelt brought forward an era of domestic progressive policies, redefining the political landscape for decades to come. -
Publication of Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle'
Sinclair's book appalled the public, including then President Theodore Roosevelt. The outcry of the deplorable slaughterhouse conditions led to the passing of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. -
Establishment of the NAACP
The NAACP, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, began the start of Civil Rights activists and leaders banding together in established groups to unify their efforts and more effectively fight for equality, laying the foundation for the future successes of the Civil Rights movement as a whole. -
The African American Great Migration
The Great Migration was a period of several decades where large amounts of African Americans fled the horrendous conditions of the South, moving to the Northeast and Upper Midwest in search of better conditions and opportunities. -
The Opening of the Panama Canal
The Panama Canal, linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans through a canal going through the tiny Central American country of Panama, drastically changed trade relations across the globe, allowing shipping lanes and trade opportunities that had not existed due to distances prior to its opening. -
Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment
The 19th Amendment prohibited voter discrimination based upon sex, finally allowing women the right to vote across the nation after years of activism by the Suffragist movement. While women still remained far from equal status in many areas, the 19th Amendment was a huge step forward in ensuring equality between men and women in the law.