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Between 1895 and 1904, particularly between 1898 and 1902, a wave of mergers rocked the American economy. In nine years, four thousand companies, 20% of the economy, were folded into rival firms. In nearly every major industry, newly consolidated firms such as General Electric and DuPont dominated their market. Forty-one separate consolidations each controlled over 70 percent of the market in their respective industries.
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Up from Slavery is Published by Booker T. Washington
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James D. Phelan, the mayor of San Francisco, penned this article to drum up support for the extension of laws prohibiting Chinese immigration.
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In 1901, financier J. P. Morgan oversaw the formation of United States Steel, built from eight leading steel companies. Industrialization was built on steel, and one firm (the world’s first billion-dollar company) controlled the market.
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Socialist mayors were elected in thirty-three cities and towns, from Berkeley, California, to Schenectady, New York, and two socialists, Victor Berger from Wisconsin and Meyer London from New York, won congressional seats.
Julius A. Wayland, editor of the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, proclaimed that “socialism is coming. It’s coming like a prairie fire and nothing can stop it . . . you can feel it in the air." -
William McKinley is Assassinated and Theodore Roosevelt Becomes President -
A native of Terre Haute, Indiana, Debs began working as a locomotive fireman as a youth in the 1870s. His experience in the American labor movement later led him to socialism. In the early-twentieth century, as the Socialist Party of America’s candidate, he ran for the presidency five times and twice earned nearly one-million votes. He was America’s most prominent socialist. In 1902, a New York paper asked Debs how he became a socialist. This is his answer.
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In 1903, journalist William Riordon published a book, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, which chronicled the activities of ward heeler George Washington Plunkitt. Plunkitt elaborately explained to Riordon the difference between “honest graft” and “dishonest graft”: “I made my pile in politics, but, at the same time, I served the organization and got more big improvements for New York City than any other livin’ man." -
Spencer’s major work, Synthetic Philosophy, sold nearly 400,000 copies in the United States by the time of his death in 1903. Gilded Age industrial elites, such as Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, and John D. Rockefeller, were among Spencer’s prominent followers. Other Americans such as William Graham Sumner, echoed his ideas.
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In 1905, for instance, North Carolinian Thomas F. Dixon published a novel, The Clansman, which depicted the Ku Klux Klan as heroic defenders of the South against the corruption of African American and northern “carpetbag” misrule during Reconstruction. -
Roosevelt signed the Hepburn Act, allowing the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate best practices and set reasonable rates for the railroads.
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a novel dramatizing the experiences of a Lithuanian immigrant family who moved to Chicago to work in the stockyards.
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When Japanese victories over Russia threatened the regional balance of power, he sponsored peace talks between Russian and Japanese leaders, earning him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.
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In 1907, the immigration of Japanese laborers was practically suspended when the American and Japanese governments reached the so-called Gentlemen’s Agreement, according to which Japan would stop issuing passports to working-class emigrants.
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Walter Rauschenbusch, a Baptist minister and theologian, advocated for a “social gospel.” In this writing, he explains why he believes Christianity must address social questions.
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“Never in the history of the world was society in so terrific flux as it is right now,” Jack London wrote in The Iron Heel, his 1908 dystopian novel in which a corporate oligarchy comes to rule the United States. -
William Howard Taft Wins the Presidential Election
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The doors of the factory had been chained shut to prevent employees from taking unauthorized breaks (the managers who held the keys saved themselves) A rickety fire ladder on the side of the building collapsed immediately. Women lined the rooftop and windows of the ten-story building and jumped, landing in a “mangled, bloody pulp.” Life nets held by firemen tore at the impact of the falling bodies. By the time the fire burned itself out, 71 workers were injured and 146 had died. -
That is 6 percent of the vote.
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By 1900 the United States was the world’s leading manufacturing nation. Thirteen years later, by 1913, the United States produced one third of the world’s industrial output—more than Britain, France, and Germany combined.5
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The 16th amendment established Congress's right to impose a Federal income tax
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three-quarters of the states had ratified the proposed amendment, and it was officially included as the 17th Amendment to directly elect senators
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On June 28, 1914, after Serbian Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Austrian-Hungarian heirs to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Grand Duchess Sophie, vengeful nationalist leaders believed the time had arrived to eliminate the rebellious ethnic Serbian threat.
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Austria declared war on Serbia for failure to meet all of the demands.
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Germany declared war on Russia to protect Austria after warnings directed at Tsar Nicholas II failed to stop Russian preparations for war.
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In 1914, with the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, did Congress attempt to close loopholes in previous legislation.
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In 1915, acclaimed film director David W. Griffith adapted Dixon’s novel into the groundbreaking blockbuster film, Birth of a Nation. The film almost singlehandedly rejuvenated the Ku Klux Klan. The romanticized version of the antebellum South and the distorted version of Reconstruction dominated popular imagination.17 -
Germans sank the RMS Lusitania. Over a hundred American lives were lost.
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President Wilson declared that the national goal was to build the Navy as “incomparably, the greatest . . . in the world.”
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When Wilson supported Carranza, and his now-rival Pancho Villa, Villa and supporters attacked American interests and raided the town of Columbus, NM, March, 1916, and killed over a dozen soldiers and civilians. Wilson ordered a expedition of several thousand soldiers led by Gen. John J. “Blackjack” Pershing to enter Mexico and capture Villa. But Villa eluded Pershing for nearly a year and, in 1917, with war in Europe looming and great injury done to U.S.-Mexican relations, Pershing left Mexico.
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In this speech before Congress, President Woodrow Wilson made the case for America’s entry into World War I.
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President Wilson believed an imminent German victory would drastically and dangerously alter the balance of power in Europe.
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The new legislation avoided the unpopular system of bonuses and substitutes used during the Civil War and was generally received without major objection by the American people.8
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In 1918, Representative Leonidas Dyer of Missouri introduced federal anti-lynching legislation that would have made local counties where lynching's took place legally liable for such killings. Throughout the early 1920s, the Dyer Bill was the subject of heated political debate, but, fiercely opposed by southern congressmen and unable to win enough northern champions, the proposed bill was never enacted.
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In the spring of 1918, a strain of the flu virus appeared in the farm country of Haskell County, Kansas, and hit nearby Camp Funston, one of the largest army training camps in the nation. The virus spread like wildfire. It killed approximately 50 million people worldwide
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In 1918, Representative Leonidas Dyer of Missouri introduced federal anti-lynching legislation that would have made local counties where lynching's took place legally liable for such killings. Throughout the early 1920s, the Dyer Bill was the subject of heated political debate, but, fiercely opposed by southern congressmen and unable to win enough northern champions, the proposed bill was never enacted.
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Before a joint session of Congress, President Wilson offered an ambitious statement of war aims and peace terms known as the Fourteen Points. The plan not only dealt with territorial issues but offered principles on which a long-term peace could be built.
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Ratified on January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment prohibited the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors"
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19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote.
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