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Industrial Revolution begins in Britain
Much of Britain's favored position came from the English Revolution of the 1600's and the triumph of a wealthy middle class with both the money and willingness to invest in new ventures. This created five basic lines of development that together would trigger the Industrial Revolution. -
Cotton gin invented
Eli Whitney was the inventor of the cotton gin and a pioneer in the mass production of cotton. -
Thomas Paine's Age of Reason was published
Age of Reason by Thomas Paine. Paine's original work was published in two parts in 1794 and 1795, titled Part First and Part II, and it sold very well in America. -
2nd Great Awakening
Protestant revival movement during the early 19th century in the United States. The movement began around 1790, gained momentum by 1800, and after 1820 membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations whose preachers led the movement. -
First steamboat
Robert Fulton invented the first successful steamboat - the Clermont. -
American Temperance Society
A society established on February 13, 1826 in Boston, MA. Within five years there were 2,220 local chapters in the U.S. -
First railroad in US
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1828 -
Tariff of Abominations
Raised tariff on imported manufactured goods -
Indian Removal Act
Authorized President Jackson to negotiate with the Native Americans in the Southern United States for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their homelands. -
Tariff of 1832
A protectionist tariff in the United States. -
Bank War
Political struggle that developed over the issue of rechartering the Second Bank of the United States during the Andrew Jackson administration. -
Black Hawk War
An estimated 150 battles, skirmishes, raids, and military engagements between Mormons and other settlers in Sanpete County, Sevier County and other parts of central and southern Utah. -
Compromise Tariff of 1833
The Tariff of 1833 was proposed by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun as a resolution to the Nullification Crisis. -
Lyceum movement flourishes
Organizations that sponsored public programs and entertainments, flourished in the mid-19th century, particularly in the northeast and middle west, and some lasted until the early 20th century. -
Specie Circular issued
An executive order issued by U.S. President Andrew Jackson in 1836 and carried out by succeeding President Martin Van Buren. It required payment for government land to be in gold. -
Bank of US expires
No other bill to renew the Bank's charter was presented to Jackson, and so the Second Bank of the United States expired in 1836. -
Panic of 1837
Financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major recession that lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices and wages went down while unemployment went up. Pessimism abounded during the time. The panic had both domestic and foreign origins. -
Brook Farm commune
A utopian experiment in communal living in the United States in the 1840s. -
Oneida Community
The Oneida Community was a religious commune founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in Oneida, New York. -
The Scarlet Letter published by Hawthorne
The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is considered to be his magnum opus. -
Maine bans liquor
The Maine law, passed in 1851 in Maine, was one of the first statutory implementations of the developing temperance movement in the United States. -
Melville publishes Moby Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville, first published in 1851. It is considered to be one of the Great American Novels. -
Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is published
Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman. Though the first edition was published in 1855, Whitman spent his entire life writing and re-writing Leaves of Grass, revising it in several editions until his death. -
Pony Express
Express mail carried by relays of riders on horseback; especially between Missouri and California around 1860. -
First transcontinental telegraph
A milestone in electrical engineering and in the formation of the United States of America. It served as the only method of near-instantaneous communication between the east and west coasts during the 1860s.