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Rutherford B. Hayes becomes the 19th President of the United States
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Texas farmers form the first agricultural labor union in Lampasas, Texas. They call themselves the Farmers' Alliance.
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Railroad laborers go on strike across the country. The workers' campaign for higher wages was ultimately a failure, but it sowed the seeds for the formation of the first labor unions.
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The Federal Government pulls out of the South, and Democrats return to power, undoing much of the progress in the region.
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Thomas Edison displays his lights and generators to reporters and investors -
Henry George writes his best-selling book, Progress and Poverty.
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James A. Garfield becomes the 20th President of the United States
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Cyrus McCormick hires a new production manager to industrialize his plants. This served to increase output to double in five years.
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Chester A. Arthur becomes the 21st President of the United States
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Sitting Bull surrenders to the United States Army, ending major Native American resistance to white settlers
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Congress passes the Immigration Act. This limits immigrants that cannot support themselves, the mentally ill, and criminals from entering the United States
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Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese immigrants from entering the country.
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William "Buffalo Bill" Cody starts his Wild West show. This served to romanticize the West in the eyes of the population.
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Cowboys in Pecos, Texas competes in what is later called the first Rodeo
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Grover Cleveland become the 22nd President of the United States
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A nationwide strike is acted out. Three to five hundred workers go on strike in an effort to gain an eight-hour work day
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Congress Passes the Interstate Commerce Act. This aids in stopping discriminatory pricing in businesses.
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Congress passes the Dawes General Allotment Act, splitting Indian tribes into individual family units, rather than a single tribal group.
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Kaiser Wilhelm II ascends to the German throne
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Edward Bellamy publishes "Looking Backward", a novel urging reform in American industry
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During this period, Thomas Edison worked on and developed what would later become Motion Pictures. In 1888, I patented the concept of motion pictures. By 1891, I had also invented the motion picture camera and a motion picture viewer.
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Benjamin Harrison becomes the 23rd President of the United States
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The Sherman Anti-Trust Act is passed. This prevents some of the business practices used by monopolies to limit competition
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Jacob Riis publishes "How the Other Half Lives", detailing the lives of the urban poor.
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The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers strikes at one of Andrew Carnegie's steel mills. The state militia is called in to break the strike, which in turn destroyed the union.
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Frederick Turner publishes hos Frontier Thesis
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Workers at the Pullman rail car factory strike. They are aided by the American Railway Union. The strike is broken by the arrest of the union's leader, Eugene Debs.
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This Supreme Court Case ruled that discrimination was legal as long as separate facilities were equal.
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William McKinley become the 25th President of the United States
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The United States acquires the territory of Hawaii
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These two wars served in helping establish the United States as a World Power.
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The Open Doors Policy is passed, calling for all Western Markets to have equal access to Chinese markets.
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Congress passes the Gold Standard Act, ending the monetary debate by putting the United States on a gold standard.
