Emily Cooper

The Cowboy West & Industrial East

1850

The Bessemer Process, a cheaper, more efficient process for making steel, was developed. The new production process fueled the industrial revolution further and caused major urban development.

1857

Calvert Vaux and Fredrick Law Olmstead , planners of urban parks, drew up a plan for Greensward. The plan was selected to become central park in NYC. It improved the beauty and serenity of the city.

1859

Herbert Spencer used Social Dariwnism to explain the evolution of human society by natural selection. His ideas stemmed from Charles Darwin’s theory of biological evolution as published in his book On the Origin of Species.

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1862

The Homestead Act, a US law, was enacted in 1862. It provided 160 acres in the west to homesteaders, anyone who was head of the household and would cultivate the land for five years. Record numbers of settlers claimed private property in the area.

During 1862, several thousand African Americans moved from the post-reconstruction South to Kansas. They were referred to as exodusters.

The Credit Mobilier was a construction company formed by the owners of the Union Pacific Railroad. They used it to fraudulently skim off railroad profits for themselves.

The Cheyenne returned to Colorado’s Sand Creek Reserve, with the assumption that they were under US government protection. On November 29th, 1864, 15o Cheyenne people, mostly women and children, were killed by militia colonel John Covington. The event is often referred to as the Sand Creek Massacre.

1864

1867

The Patrons of Hasbandry, formed by Oliver Hudson Kelley, was an organization for farmers , later known as the Grange. It was a social and educational group that attempted to combat the power of the railroads.

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1869

1871

Under the direction of Boss Tweed, the Tweed Ring lasted from 1869 to 1871. The group of corrupt politicians took on a project to construct the NY County Courthouse. It cost taxpayers 13 million dollars, but should’ve only been 3 million dollars.

In 1870, Jacob Riis left Denmark for the United States. He pointed out the unclean and overcrowded dumbbell tenements.

The Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869. It stretched from the Atlantic to Pacific coasts of the US. The completion of the track was in Promontory, Utah, were Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads connected.

The Standard Oil Company of Ohio was established by John D Rockefeller. By 1870, it processed two to three percent of the country’s crude oil. Within a decade, it controlled 90 percent of the refining business.

1870

Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist, helped arouse public outrage against Tammany Hall’s graft, finally breaking the Tweed Ring.

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1872

Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck brought retail merchandise to small towns with the mail-order catalog. Ward’s catalog was launched in 1872 and caused the Post Office to introduce a rural free delivery system to bring packages to every home.

Andrew Carnegie entered the steel industry in 1873. By 1899, the Carnegie Steel Company manufactured more steel than all the factories in Great Britain.

1873

1874

George Armstrong Custer reported that the Black Hills, in the great plains of western South Dakota. His claim caused a gold rush and two Sioux chiefs to appeal again to government officials in Washington.

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1876

Thomas Alva Edison created the world’s first research laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. He perfected the incandescent light bulb and a system to produce and distribute electrical power there.

Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson unveiled the telephone in 1876. The invention opened the way for a worldwide communications network.

Bimetallism was a monetary system in which the government would give citizens either gold or silver in exchange for paper currency or checks.

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Some of the Nez Perce people refused to leave their ancestral land in the Pacific Northwest and move to the Indian reservation in Idaho. However, they were forcibly removed, causing the Nez Perce war with the US government.

The Southern Alliance was the largest alliance. It included white southern farmers who accepted the separation of organizations.

1877

Gilded Age, by Charles Dudley and Mark Twain, mocks the greed and self indulgence of his characters.

Jim Crow Laws were laws enacted by southern state and local governments to separate blacks and whites.

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Booker T Washington was the leader of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. He believed that racism would end once blacks acquired useful labor skills and proved their economic value to society.

In 1883, Joseph Pulitzer bought the New York World. It included large Sunday editions, comics, sports coverage, and women’s news. He emphasized “sin, sex, and sensation” in his paper.

1881

1883

The first settlement house was created in 1876 in Chicago. It was a community center providing assistance to residence, mostly immigrants, in a slum neighborhood.

George Pullman built a factory for manufacturing sleepers and other railroad cars on the Illinois prairie. He also built a nearby town for his employees, providing for all their basic needs.

1880

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1886

Samuel Gompers led the Cigar Markers’ International Union to join with other craft unions in 1886.

The National Farmers’ Alliance included many who sympathized with farmers. They sent lecturers from town to town to educate people about the topics of lower interest rates on loans and government control over railroads and banks.

On May 4th, people gathered in Chicago’s Haymarket Square to protest police brutality. In the Haymarket Affair, the public began to turn against the labor movement.

The Colored Farmers’ Alliance was formed by a white Baptist missionary, R M Humphrey. It prompted cooperative buying and selling. They had to meet mostly in secret to avoid racially motivated violence at the hands of angry landowners and suppliers.

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1888

1887

The Interstate Commerce Commission was a five member group. They worked to reestablish the right of the federal government to supervise railroad activities. The group formed due to the passing of the Interstate Commerce Act.

Dawes Act was passed by Congress in 1887. It aimed to Americanize the Native Americans. It broke up reservations and gave some of the land individual Native Americans.

In 1888, George Eastman introduced his Kodak camera. It prompted many Americans to become amateur photographers and created the photojournalism field.

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On December 28th, 1890, the 7th Cavalry rounded up 350 starved Sioux and took them to a camp at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. Soldiers demanded that the Native Americans give up their weapons and shots were fired. In the Battle of Wounded Knee, the Cavalry killed about 300, mostly unarmed, Native Americans.

A Paiute prophet promised the poor Sioux that if they preformed the Ghost Dance ritual their land would be restored. This alarmed military leaders who issued the arrest of Sitting Bull.

The Sherman Antitrust Act made it illegal to form a trust that interfered with free trade between the states of with other countries. The Government feared that expanding corporations would stifle free competition.

Alarmed at the tactics of the industrialists, critics began to call them robber barons. It was a derogatory term used for businessmen who made immense amounts of money.

1890

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1892

On July 2nd, 1892, a populist party convention in Omaha, Nebraska demanded reforms to lift the burden of debt on farmers and other workers. Their Omaha Platform gave the people a greater voice in their government.

Populism was a political movement demanding that people have a greater voice in government and seeking to advance the interests of farmers and laborers.

On March 9th, 1892, three African American businessmen, friends of Ida B Wells, were illegally executed without trial. Many other groups were discriminated against politically and violently.

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1894

1895

Eugene v Debs felt unions should include all laborers, skilled and unskilled, in a specific industry. He formed the American Railway Union, which won a strike for higher wages in 1894. The group added to the momentum of the union organizing.

William Randolph Hearst purchased the New York Morning Journal in 1895. He sought to outdo the Pulitzer by filling it with exaggerated tales of personal scandal, cruelty, hypnotism, and an imaginary conquest to Mars.

Due to the panic of 1893, the Pullman Company laid off over 3000 employees and cut wages by up to 50%. Many took home less than 6 dollars a week. The Pullman Strike turned violent and federal troops were sent in.

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William Jennings Bryan gave his Cross of Gold Speech in his 1896 presidential campaign for the democratic party.

William McKinley was nominated by the republican party as their presidential candidate in 1896, to state their firm commitment to the gold standard. He overall won the election for president.

The supreme court case of Plessy vs. Ferguson tested the constitutionality of segregation. The court ruled that the separation of races in public accommodations was legal and didn’t violate the 14th amendment.

1896

The Vaudeville theatre was called “an American invention” by Edwin Milton. It offered something to attract everyone.

1899

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W E B Dubois was the first African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard. He founded the Niagara Movement and insisted blacks should seek a liberal arts education so the African American community could have educated leaders.

On December 17th, 1903, in Kitty Hawk, NC, Orville and Wilbur Wright preformed their first successful flight. They opened the way for further advances in the development of the airplane.

Starting in 1910, around 50000 Chinese immigrants entered the US through Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay.

Ellis Island, located on the upper bay just off the New Jersey coast, had a record number of immigrants processed in 1907/

1903

1905

1907

1910

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