America in the Gilded Age, 1865-1901
1865 Reconstruction begins
Lincoln assassinated; Andrew Johnson becomes president
13th Amendment: slavery abolished
Black Codes
1866 Civil Rights Act
Fetterman massacre
National Labor Union organized
1867 Reconstruction Acts
Tenure of Office Act
Indian Act
National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry founded
Christopher Sholes invents typewriter
Alaska purchase
1868 14th Amendment: freedom of individual
Johnson impeached
Refrigerator car invented
Grant defeats Seymour
1869 Central Pacific and Union Pacific transcontinental railroad completed
“Black Friday” gold crisis
Knights of Labor founded
Westinghouse air brake invented
1870 15th Amendment: right to vote
First Enforcement Act
Standard Oil Company of Ohio organized
Tweed Ring broken
1871 Second and Third Enforcement Acts
Chicago fire
Alabama claims settled
1872 Grant defeats Greeley
Credit Mobilier scandals
1873 Salary Grab Act
Collapse of Jay Cooke and Co. leads to panic and depression
1874 J. F. Glidden invents barbed wire
Red River War begins
1875 Resumption Act
Strike of the Molly Maguires
Civil Rights Act
Whiskey Ring broken
Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic
1876 Disputed election: Hayes defeats Tilden
Cruikshank Opinion
National Independent (Greenback) party founded
Custer’s Last Stand
Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone
Centennial Exhibition near Philadelphia
1877 Hayes ends Reconstruction
Desert Land Act
Great Railroad Strike
Munn v. Illinois
1878 Bland-Allison Silver Purchase Act
1879 Return to specie payments
Thomas Edison invents incandescent lamp
1880 James Bonsack invents cigarette-making machine
American Renaissance identified in Californian
1881 Garfield assassinated; Chester A. Arthur becomes president
Star Route Frauds
Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor
Henry Demarest Lloyd, The Story of a Great Monopoly
Henry James, Washington Square and The Portrait of a Lady
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
Trusts devised by Standard Oil
1883 Pendleton Civil Service Act
Civil Rights cases
Standard time adopted by railroads
Metropolitan Opera opens
1884 Cleveland defeats Blaine
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
1885 Combine harvester invented
John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose
1886 Haymarket riot
AFL founded
Wabash case
Statue of Liberty dedicated
1887 Interstate Commerce Act
Dawes Severalty Act
Hawaii cedes Pearl Harbor to U.S.
1888 Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward
Harrison defeats Cleveland
1889 Oklahoma opened
Jane Addams opens Hull House
Commercial Union of American States
1890 Closing of frontier
Massacre at Wounded Knee
McKinley Tariff
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
Sherman Silver Purchase Act
Mississippi constitution and poll tax
1891 Forest Reserve Act
1892 Homestead strike
Cleveland defeats Harrison
Omaha Platform of the Populists
1893 Great Northern Railroad completed
Panic and depression
Repeal of Sherman Silver Purchase Act
Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis”
World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago
1894 Carey Irrigation Act
Pullman strike
Coxey’s Army marches to Washington
1895 E. C. Knight and Co. v. U.S.
Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co.
Atlanta Compromise
Boston Public Library opens
Cuban revolt
Anglo-American dispute in Venezuela
1896 New immigration exceeds old
Plessy v. Ferguson
McKinley defeats Bryan
1897 Maximum Freight Rate Case
William James, The Will to Believe
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Robert Gould Shaw Memorial
1898 Spanish-American War over Cuba: U.S. assumes possession of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico
Annexation of Hawaii
1899 Hay’s Notes on the Open Door in China
Three-nation protectorate of Samoa formed
Frank Norris, McTeague
1900 Boxer Rebellion in Beijing and Hay’s Second Notes on Open Door
Gold Standard Act
Galveston devastated by hurricane
Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
1901 McKinley assassinated; Theodore Roosevelt becomes president
Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo
Platt amendment
Filipino rebellion defeated
Morgan buys out Carnegie and creates U.S. Steel
Northern Securities Corporation founded