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Standard Oil Trust formed
An American company and corporate trust that from 1870 to 1911 was the industrial empire of John D. Rockefeller and associates, controlling almost all oil production, processing, marketing, and transportation in the United States. -
Horace Greeley's "Go West, young man"
"Go West, young man" is a phrase often credited to the American author Horace Greeley concerning America's expansion westward, related to the then-popular concept of Manifest Destiny.Greeley favored westward expansion. He saw the fertile farmland of the west as an ideal place for people willing to work hard for the opportunity to succeed. The phrase came to symbolize the idea that agriculture could solve many of the nation's problems of poverty and unemployment in Eastern big cities. -
Knights of Labor Organized
Knights of Labor (KOL), the first important national labour organization in the United States, founded in 1869. It originated as a secret organization meant to protect its members from employer retaliations. Secrecy also gave the organization an emotional appeal.The organization’s original platform was partly ideological. Based on a belief in the unity of interest of all producing groups proposed a system of worker cooperatives to replace capitalism. -
Transconential Railroad Completed at Promontory Point, Utah
On this day in 1869, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.S. history. The years following the construction of the railway were years of rapid growth and expansion for the United States, due in large part to the speed and ease of travel that the railroad provided. -
Women's Christian Temperance Union formed
The WCTU became one of the largest and most influential women’s groups of the 19th century by expanding its platform to campaign for labor laws, prison reform and suffrage. After 1898, the WCTU began to distance itself from feminist groups, instead focusing primarily on prohibition. -
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
The conflict began that with a wage reduction on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad quickly escalated as the called not only for local militia but federal troops to suppress the strike and reopen the railroads. The strike moved west on the B and O. Crowds of strikers and angry workers assembled in downtown Baltimore, destroyed rail property, interrupted service, and endangered citizens. This was a time of great and unprecedented violence. -
Posse Comitatus Act
The Posse Comitatus Act, 18 U.S. Code, Section 1385, an original intent of which was to end the use of federal troops to police state elections in former Confederate states. -
James Garfield Assassinated
When James A. Garfield was attacked on July 2, 1881, the nation was shocked, enraged, and captivated. President for just four months, Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau as he was about to board a train at the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. Severely wounded, Garfield lingered until September 19. -
Tuskegee Institute opened
Created by Booker T. Washington to educate African Americans. Washington aimed to train students to become teachers themselves—to move to rural areas where they could teach children moral values, improve intellectual and religious life, and instill a belief in the importance of hard work. He became well known for advocating vocational training. -
Creation of Time Zones
United States railroad companies began utilizing standard time zones in 1883. Although the time zones had been established, not all countries switched immediately. Though most U.S. states began to adhere to the Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern time zones by 1895, Congress didn't make the use of these time zones mandatory until the Standard Time Act of 1918. -
Haymarket Square Riot
The May 4, 1886, rally at Haymarket Square was organized by labor radicals to protest the killing and wounding of several workers by the Chicago police during a strike the day before at the McCormick Reaper Works. The riot set off a national wave of xenophobia, as scores of foreign-born radicals and labor organizers were rounded up by the police in Chicago and elsewhere. -
American Federation of Labor Founded
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was organized in 1886. Its president was Samuel Gompers, who served until 1925. The purpose of the AFL was to organize skilled workers into national unions consisting of others in the same trade. Their purpose was not political, and aimed simply at shorter hours, higher wages, and better working conditions. -
Dawes Act
hTe Act broke up previous land settlements given to Native Americans in the form of reservations, and separated them into smaller, separate parcels of land to live on. More importantly, the Act required Natives to live apart from their nations and assimilate into European culture. -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act was the first United States Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies. The Act put responsibility upon gov attorneys and district courts to pursue and investigate trusts, companies and organizations suspected of violating the Act. This piece of legislation was the result of intense public opposition to the concentration of economic power in large corporations and in combinations of business concerns that had been taking place in the US for decades before the CW. -
Battle of Wounded Knee (Wounded Knee Massacre)
The U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under Big Foot near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it’s unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which it’s estimated 150 Indians were killed. The massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in America’s deadly war against the Plains Indians. -
Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike of 1892 was one of the most bitterly fought industrial disputes in the history of U.S. labor. When negotiations between managment and workers fell through because of 20% wage cuts, displaced workers opened fire and killed ten people. They thought they'd won, but the PA militia was called into squash the situation and many workers were blacklisted so they couldn't be hired elsewhere. -
Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis
Turner pointed to expansion as the most important factor in American history. He claimed that “the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development. -
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Pullman Strike
llman Strike, (May 11, 1894–c. July 20, 1894), in U.S. history, widespread railroad strike and boycott that severely disrupted rail traffic in the Midwest of the United States in June–July 1894. The federal government’s response to the unrest marked the first time that an injunction was used to break a strike. Amid the crisis, on June 28, President Grover Cleveland and Congress created a national holiday, Labor Day, as a conciliatory gesture toward the American labour movement. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
This 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case upheld the constitutionality of segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. It stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car, breaking a Louisiana law. Rejecting Plessy’s argument that his constitutional rights were violated, the Court ruled that a state law that “implies merely a legal distinction” between whites and blacks did not conflict with the 13th and14th Amendments. -
US Steel formed
Leading U.S. producer of steel and related products, founded in 1901. U. S. Steel had its origins in the dealings of some of America's most legendary businessmen, including Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and Charles Schwab. In the decades that followed, the corporation consolidated its various steelmaking and raw material subsidiaries and divisions through a series of reorganizations.