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Missouri Compromise of 1820
Missouri is slave, but all territory above 36 degrees 30 north is free -
The first national labor union was founded
it was called the National Trades Union. It was open to workers from all trades. It lasted only a few years, and no new unions formed in the wake or the depressions of the late 1830's. -
The telegraph is invented
Samuel Morse's telegraph sends the first message from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland. Before the telegraph, messages were sent by horse and rider. In the eaely 1860's, the telegraph replaced the Pony Express- thew olng distance mail service in the West. -
Sewing machine invented
Elias Howe's sewing machine revolutionizes the way clothes are made in homes and factories. In his original design, a hand-turned wheel moved the needle up and down. -
A new party opposes slavery
Northern opponents of slavery formed the Free-Soil Party. -
Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels expanded on the ideas of socialism in a treatise titled Communist Manifesto
This pamphlet denounced capitalism and predicted that workers would overturn it. Most Americans rejected these ideas, believing that they threatened the American ideals of free enterprise, private property, and individual liberty. -
Compromise of 1850
California is free. Remaining land decided by popular vote in the territory. Undid the Missouri Compromise. -
Safety elevator invented
Elisha Otis develops a safety mechanism to prevent elevator cars form sudddenly falling. He demonstrates his invention at an exposition in New York. -
Violence erupts in Kansas
Southern porslavery forces attack the free-state town of Lawrence,Kansas. -
Republican Party looses election
They opposed slavery. -
The American Institute of Architecture is established
They professionalized the practice of architecture. Its members encouraged specific education and official licensing in order to become an architect. These professionals designed the bulidings that were quickly becoming hallmarks of urban life: public schools, libraries, train stations, financial institutions, office buildings, and residences. -
Rowland H. Macy opens the first department store
It became the largest single store in America. Its sales methods- widespread advertising, a variety of goods organized into "departments", and high-quality items at fair prices- became the standard in large urban stores. -
Senate Election
Lincoln- self educated lawyer and small role in politics
Douglas- favored in north and south and favored popular sovereignty -
Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species"
In the book he argued that animals evolved by a process of "natural selection" and that only the fittest survived to reproduce. -
Edwin Drake drilled what became the world's first oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania
Before Drake's invention, oil, which was used for light and fuel, was mainly obtained from boiling down whale blubber. -
Most Americans lived in rural areas,with only 16 percent living in towns or cities with a population of 8,000 or more
By 1900, that percentage had doubled, and nearly 15 million Americans lived in cities with populations or more than 50,000. This period was the begining of an upsurge in urbanization that both reflected and fueled massive changes in the way Americans lived. -
Election of 1860
Democrats- supported popular sovereignty
Republicans- wanted to end slavery -
The seven seceding states established the Confederate States of America
proceded to frame a constitution for the new government, confederate constitution resembled US constitution -
Kansas is a free state
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Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation
This presidential decree declared that "all persons held as slaves within any state or desighnated part of a state , the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against theUnited States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." -
Battle of Gettysburg
Destroyed one third of Lee's forces and marked the last major Confederate attempt to invade the North -
Lee surrenders
Lee surrenders as the result of total war which is destroying resources that sustain the troops. -
Lincoln is assassinated
Andrew Johnson takes over as president. -
Horatio Alger published his first novel
This widly successful novel told the story of a poor boy who rose to waelth and fame by working hard. Alger's novel stressed the possibility that anyone could vault from poverty nad obscurity to wealth and fame. -
Uriah Smith Stephens founded a labor union called the Knights of Labor
He included all workers of any trade, skilled or nonskilled,in his union. Also recruited African Americans. Under Stephens, the union functioned largely as a secret society, devoted to broad social reform such as replacing capitalism with workers' cooperatives. -
The number of corporations in America increased dramatically
They were an important part of industrial capitalism, or the economic free-market system centered around industries. -
A fire destroys Chicago
A fire destroyed Chicago, killing between 200 to 300 people. It also left more than 100,000 people homeless. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, many cities developed professional fire fighting teams. -
Chautauqua Circuit opened
CC was a kind of summer camp. It sponsored lectures and entertainment along New York's Chautauqua Lake. It began as a summer school for Methodist Sunday school teachers. Soon, Chautauqua leaders were transporting their tents to small towns all across america to deliver comic stroytelling, bands and singers, and lectures on politics or morals. A family might stay at a camp for as long as two weeks. -
Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone
Within a few years, 148 telephone companies had strung more than 34,000 miles of wire, and long distance lines linked several cities in the Northeast and Midwest. -
Inventor Thomas Edison established a research labratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey
Edison recieved more than 1,000 patents for new inventions. -
Baseball had been aroung a number of years before the National League organized
Baseball is America's national sport. Baseball soon became a public show. Major cities built stadiums that seated thousands, like Boston's Fenway Park. Billboards advertised everything from other sports to toohpaste and patent medicines. There were even baseball songs. The most famous-"Take Me Out to the Ball Game"- was written in 1908. Until 1887, teams sometimes included African American players. -
1876 election
Tilden v.s. Rutherford B. Hayes; Tilden wins popular vote;Hayes can be president,if troops leave the South -
The first major strike occurred in the railroad industry
Striking workers, responding to wage cuts, caused massive property destruction in several cities. State militias were called in to protect strikebreakers, or temporary workers hired to perform the jobs of striking workers. Finally, the federal government sent in troops to restore order. -
Light bulb invented
Thomas Edison patents the electric light bulb. Within two years, he installs a street-lighting system in New York City. -
Terence V. Powerdly takes leadership of the Knights
The son of Irish immigrants, Powerdly had worked in a menial job on the railroad before rising to become mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania,in the 1870's. He continued to pursue ideological reforms meant to lead workers out of the bondage of wage. He encouraged boycotts and negotiation with employers, but he abandoned the secretive nature of the union. -
Nearly three quarters of a million immigrants arrived in America
Immigrants were willing to work for low wages because competition for jobs was fierce. And they were prepared to move frequently in pursuit of economic opportunity. All of these factors meant that industries had a huge, and willing, workforce to fuel growth. -
Chinese Exclusion Actis passed by Congress
The act prohibited immigration by Chinese laborers, limited the civil rights of the Chinese immigrants already in the US, and forbade the naturalization of Chinese residents. -
"Buffalo Bill" Cody threw a Fourth of July celebration near his ranch in Nebraska
He offered prizes for competitions in riding, roping, and shooting. So many ppeople attended that Cody took his show on the road, booking performances at points along railroad lines. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show toured America and Europe, shaping the world's romantic notion of the American West. The show included markswoman Annie Okaley and the Sioux leader Sitting Bull, as well as dislays riding, roping, and horse-and-rider stunts. -
Steam boiler furnace invented
African American inventor Granville Woods invents an improved steam-powered furnace for running trains. -
Lamarcus Thompson opened the world's first roller coaster
At ten cents a ride, thompson averaged more than $600 perday in income. The roller coaster was the first ride to open at Coney Island- the nation's best-known amusement park- at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean in New York City. Soon, Coney Island added a hotel and a horse racing track. Similar amusement parks, located within easy reach of a city, were built around the country. -
thousands of workers mounted a national demonstration for an eight-hour workday
Strikes erupted in several cities, and fights broke out between strikers and strikebreakers. Conflict then escalated between strikers and police woh were brought in to halt the violence. -
Samuel Gompers formed the American Federation of Labor(AFL)
Gompers was a poor English immigrant who had worked his way up to head the local cigarmakers' union in New York. The AFL was a craft union, a loose organization of skilled workers from some 100 local unions devoted to specific crafts or trades. -
The United States Senate created the Interstate Commerce Commission
The ICC was created to oversee railroad operations. This was the first federal body ever set up to monitor American business operations. The ICC could only monitor railroads that crossed state lines, and it could not make laws or control the railroad transactions. -
Richmond, Virginia, introduced a revolutionary invention
They invented streetcars powered by overhead electric cables. Within a decade, every major city followed. It was the begining of a transportation revolution. Mass transit-public systems that could carry large numbers of people fairly inexpensively-reshaped the nation's cities. -
Senate passed the Sherman Antitrust Act
This act outlawed any trust that operated in restriant of trade or commerce among the several states. For more than a decade, the provision was seldom enforced. In fact, the law was often used in the corporations' favor, as they argued that labor unions restained trade. -
Many cities had huge immigrant populations
In San Francisco and Chicago, they made up more than 4percent of the population. Four out of five inhabitantsof New York City were foreign born or had foreign-born parents. -
The cities are growing
New York's Lower East Side had a population of more than 700 people per acre. As immigrants and rural migrants arrived, they crowded into neighborhoods that already seemed to be overflowing. -
Immigrants start to come to America
The first stop for ships at A,erican ports was a processing station where immigration officials decided who could stay in the US. To enter, immigrants had to be healthy and show thta they had money, a skill, or a sponsor to provide for them. Most European immigrants arrived in New York Habor and they were processed at Ellis Island. -
A Carnegie Steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, cut workers' wages
The union immediately called a strike. Andrew Carnegie's partner, Henry Frick, responded by bringing in the Pinkertons, aprivate police force known for their ability to break up strikes. -
The Pullman Palace Car Company laid off workers and reduced wages by 25 percent
The PPCC produced luxury cars. Inventor George Pullman,required workers to live in the company town near Chicago and controlled their rents and prices of goods. -
Nearly 300,000 railworkers had walked off their jobs
The Pullman Strike escalated, halting both railroad traffic and mail delivery. Railroad owners cited the Sherman Antitrust Act in its arguement tahat the union was illegally disrupting free trade. On July 4th, President Grover Cleveland ended the strike. -
A court case established that Chinese people born in America were US citizens and could, therefore, come and go freely
Many immigration officials ignored this ruling. In that same year, Congress passed another act that prohibited the enrty of anyone who was a criminal, immoral, a pauper, or likely to need public assistance. In practice, the law was used to bar many poor or handicapped immigrants. these acts marked the begining of immigration restriction into the US. -
Some urban areas had a population that was more than 40 percent foreign born
Some immigrants found their way to a city through happenstance, while others joined family members or were recruited by companies needing labor. In this way, neighborhoods, cities,regions,and industries often acquired a majority of workers from a particular locale.