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The Morrill Act
The Morrill Act was first proposed in 1857, and was passed by Congress in 1859, but it was vetoed by President James Buchanan. In 1861, Morrill resubmitted the act with the amendment that the proposed institutions would teach military tactics as well as engineering and agriculture. President Lincoln passed it on July 2, 1862. -
Homestead Act
The Homestead Act offered 160 acres of free land to settlers if they would only pay a small fee and improve the land, which ment to build a small cabin on it. Alternately, the land could be purchased for $1.25 per acre. Settlers had a rude awakening when they had to often give up due to drought, extreme weather, or simply because 160 acres wasn't enough to sustain a family. -
Sand Creek Massacre
At Sand Creek, Colorado in 1864, Colonel J. M. Chivington's militia massacred about four hundred Indians who thought they had immunity. Women were shot and children had their brains dashed out. Braves were tortured, scalped, and unspeakably mutilated. -
Period: to
The Gilden Age
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Treaty of Fort Laramie
The Treaty of Fort Laramie was made between the federal government and the Sioux. It gave back lands to the Indians. The treaty looked promising but was short-lived. Six years later, gold was discovered on the Sioux reservation when Col. William Armstrong Custer led a "geological" expedition into the Black Hills. -
Election of 1868
The Republican`s platformed called for continuing the Reconstruction of the South, while the Democrats `s platform surrounded the arguement of greenbacks, federal war bonds, and gold. The nominees were Horatio Seymour(Demo) and U.S. Grant(Rep). Grant used the tactic of waving his bloody shirt for support. A large amount of freed blacks (500,000 estimated) helped Grant secure this lead. Grant won by 214 to 80 electoral votes and roughly 3,000,000 to 2,700,000 popular votes. -
Transcontinental Railroad Completed
The first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. It was one of America's most impressive peacetime undertakings. It welded the West Coast more firmly to the Union and facilitated a flourishing trade with Asia. Before the century's end, four other transcontinental lines were completed. -
Black Friday
"Jubilee Jim" Fisk and Jay Gould plotted to corner the gold market. They bribed President Grant`s Brother-in-law with $25,000 to help. On September 24, 1869 they bid the price of gold up extremely. -
The Tweed Ring
The Tweed ring in Ney York City showed the lack of morales and ethics. "Boss" Tweed led a ring of employed bribery, graft, and fradulent elections to obtain the amount of $200 Million. In 1871 the New York Times published much evidence which eventually led to the arrest of Tweed who later died in jail. -
Credit Mobilier Scandal
In 1872 Union Pacific Railroad insiders formed the Credit Mobilier contruction company hired themselves at inflated prices to build the railroad lines earning dividends as high as 348%. -
Formation of the Liberal Republican Party
Following their slogan "Turn the Rascals out", the Liberal Republican Party urged for a purification of the Washington administration. They also wanted an end to Reconstruction. Because of their influcence, the Republicans "cleaned house" by passing a general amnesty act removing political disabilities from some 500 confederate leaders. They also removed high Civil War tariffs and fumigated the Grant administration with mild civil service reform. -
John Hopkins University founded
On his death in 1873, Johns Hopkins, a Quaker entrepreneur and childless bachelor, bequeathed $7 million (between $140 million to $1.6 billion in 2011 dollars, by varying estimates) to fund a hospital and university in Baltimore, Maryland. At that time this fortune, generated primarily from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, was the largest philanthropic gift in the history of the United States -
Comstock Law
The Comstock Act, enacted March 3, 1873, was a United States federal law which amended the Post Office Act and made it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious" materials through the mail, including contraceptive devices and information. In addition to banning contraceptives, this act also banned the distribution of information on abortion for educational purposes. Twenty-four states passed similar prohibitions on materials distributed within the states. -
Panic of 1873
Overreaching promoters laid more track, errected more factories, sunk more mines, and sowed more grainfields than there was a market for, More than 15,000 businesses collapsed. This led to the Resumption Act of 1875 which pledged the government to the further withdrawl of greenbacks from circulation and to the redemption of all paper currency of gold at face value beginning in 1879. -
Whiskey Ring
The Whiskey Ring robbed Treasury of millions from excise-tax revenues. Grant quotes "Let no guilty man escape" but then contradicts himself by excusing his private secretary from punishment. -
The Election of 1876
The Election of 1876 brought of the canidates of Rutherford B. Hayes for the Republicans and Samuel J. Tilden for the Democratics. Due to a very close election and an arguement over who should count the ballots to ensure balance and no corruption the Compromise of 1877 was made to ensure a president for the inaguration. Hayes would be elected as President whereas he would then remove troops from South Carolina and Louisianna. The republicans would also support bills for southern railroad. -
Battle of Little Bighorn
Led by Crazy horse and Sitting Bull, some Sioux refused to go to the reservation. Custer led about 400 calvary against Crazy Horse who was labeled as the hostile Indian. Custer faced some 10,000 Indians, about 2,500 warriors. All of Custer's detachment were killed, including himself. -
Strike of 1877
In 1877, the presidents of the nation`s 4 largest railroads collectively decided to cut employees wages by 10%, the workers rebelled. President Hayes decision to bring in Federal Troops to quell the rebellion brought a large wave of working class support. Work stoppages spread like wildfire from cities from Baltimore to St. Louis. After the battle between soldiers and workers ended over 100 people were dead. -
Election of 1880
The Republican party nominated James A. Garfield while the Democrats nominated Winnfield Scott Hancock. Waving his bloody shirt, Garfield won with 214 to 155 electoral votes. Garfield openly opposed the spoils system, which in the end led to his assanation by Charles J. Guiteau. His death effected the death of the spoils system. -
American Red Cross Founded
Clara Barton and a circle of her acquaintances founded the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C. on May 21, 1881. Barton first heard of the Swiss-inspired global Red Cross network while visiting Europe following the Civil War. Returning home, she campaigned for an American Red Cross and for ratification of the Geneva Convention protecting the war-injured, which the United States ratified in 1882. -
Booker T Washington becomes head of Tuskegee Institute
Washington was born into slavery to Jane, an enslaved woman, and a white father. His father was a nearby planter, in a rural area of the Piedmont region in southwestern Virginia. After emancipation, his mother moved the family to rejoin her husband in West Virginia; there Washington worked in a variety of manual labor jobs before making his way to Hampton Roads seeking an education. He worked his way through Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University) and attended college -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese were resented for their cheap labor by many groups especially the Irish. Congress closed the door on Chinese immigration to the US, which stayed in affect until 1943. -
Completion of the Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge was initially designed by German immigrant John Augustus Roebling, The Brooklyn Bridge was opened for use on May 24, 1883. The opening ceremony was attended by several thousand people and many ships were present in the East Bay for the occasion. President Chester A. Arthur and New York Mayor Franklin Edson crossed the bridge to celebratory cannon fire and were greeted by Brooklyn Mayor Seth Low when they reached the Brooklyn-side tower. -
Election of 1884
The Republican nominee was James G. Blaine while the Democratic nominee was Grover Cleaveland. Blaine was linked to the "Mulligan Letters" while Grover was linked to a widow in Buffalo and his illegitmate son. The parties both stooped law and slang "mud" instead of focusing on the primary topics. With the help of the south, Cleaveland won by a 219 to 182 electoral votes and 4,879,507 to 4,850,093 popular votes. -
First Skyscraped Built
Louis Henry Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, The people in Midwestern America felt less social pressure to conform to the ways and styles of the architectural past. By assembling a framework of steel girders, architects and builders could suddenly create tall, slender buildings with a strong and relatively delicate steel skeleton. -
American Federation of Labor
The AF of L was started by Samuel Gompers in 1886 and was made up of small, independent unions. Gompers desire for workers was summed up simply as "more." He sought better wages, shorter hours, better working conditions, and more. They eventually garnered 500,000 members and were criticized as the labor trust. The rise of unions could be summed up as a long battle that was just beginning. -
Haymarket Square Incident
The Haymarket Square Incident occurred in Chicago. There strikers were intermingled with a handful of anarchists calling for overthrow of the government. A bombing took place and a handful of people were killed or injured. Eight anarchists were arrested; five were given the death sentence and the other three were given hefty sentences. They were eventually pardoned in 1892 by Governor Atlgeld. -
The Errection of the Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated. The statue, a gift to the United States from the people of France, is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declation of Independence, -
Dawes Severalty Act
The Dawes Severalty Act was passed to erase tribes and set the Indians on the road to "becoming white." It was a very insulting law that said the Indians could become U.S. citizens after 25 years if they behaved as the U.S. government preferred. -
Interstate Commerce Act
Congress passes the Interstate Commerce Act that outlawed rebates and pools. It also required rates to be openly published and banned charging low rates for the business that shipped large quantities and higher rates for small farmers who shipped small quantities. -
Election of 1888
The Democratics nominated dejectedly Grover Cleaveland again while the Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison (Grandson of Tippecannoe). The main issue was the tariff. Harrison barely squeaked through as winner by 233 to 168 electoral votes and roughly 5.5 million to 5.4 million popular votes. -
Jane Adams found the Hull House
Hull House was a settlement house in the United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located in the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois, Hull House (named for the home's first owner) opened its doors to the recently arrived European immigrants.Hull House became, at its inception in 1889, "a community of university women" whose main purpose was to provide social and educational opportunities for working class people (many of them recent European immigrants). -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was enacted in attempt to outlaw trusts or monopolies. It forbade combinations such as cartels, interlocking directorates, and holding companies. It was not effective because proving combinations exist can be difficult, and it lacked real teeth in enforcement. It finally gained real muscle in 1914. -
Election of 1892
The Populist party nominated General James B. Weaver while the Democratics nominated once again Grover Cleaveland. Due to the Populist party falling apart and the Republican party being discredited, the Democrats ran to the goal for the point. -
Depression of 1893
As the most punishing economic downturn in the 1800s, the depression of 1893 deeply distressed the US. It resulted from the splurge of overbuilding and speculation, labor disorders, and the ongoing agricultural depression. -
Free-Silver Election of 1896
The Free-Silver Election of 1896 was perhaps the most significant political turning point since Lincoln's victories in 1860 and 1864.The outcome was a resounding victory for big business, the big cities, middle-class values, and financial conservatism. McKinley triumphed decisively with 271 to 176 in the Electoral College and 7,102,246 to 6,492,559 in the popular election. -
Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow Laws stopped the informal seperation between blacks and whites. It then made it legal to seperate them in "equal but seperate" locations although "equal" was not usually the case. 1896, Plessy vs. Ferguson makes this legal by Supreme Court. -
Utah Becomes a State
In 1896, the Mormons banned polygamy, or the marriage with multiple wives. Shortly after, Utah applied for statehood and was accepted. -
Gold Standard Act
Congress passed the Gold Standard Act saying people could trade in paper money for gold. Just knowing and trusting that menat there was no need to do that. This brought economic calm and stability.
