Study Tool: Chronological Events of the 1877-1887 Era – With Keywords List to Help You

Date	Presidential Election/Event	Beyond America/ Foreign Policy	Government Institutions	US Land Expansion	US Economic Development	Issue/Organization Development	Political Party Development
1870					Standard Oil – John D. Rockefeller (List)
1871						Workers (List): Knights of Labor starts
1873					Carnegie Steel – Andrew Carnegie
1876				1st barbed wire	Thomas Alva Edison – Menlo Park
1876-11	Rutherford B. Hayes (Ohio Gov.) v. Sam Tilden (NY Gov.)
1877			Decision – Compromise of 1877		Alexander Graham Bell – telephone Patent: phonograph		“New South” – Redeemers, Readjusters ß
1877			Supreme Court: Munn v. Illinois -Granger law upheld [1]	Desert Land Act[2]	Railroad Strike – PA, MD, West Va, Ohio
1878				Timber and Stone Act[3]	Patent: typewriter
1879					Patent: cash register	*Workers:* Knights of Labor – new leader [4]
1880-11	James A. Garfield v. Winfield Scott Hancock				1880s Trends, Railroad (List)
1881-02	Garfield shot
1881-09	Chester A. Arthur, President
1883			Pendleton Act[5]
1883					Brooklyn Bridge
1885					Knights of Labor – wins strike Jay Gould’s Railroad
1884-11	James G. Blaine (Rep.) v. Grover Cleveland (NY)
1886			Supreme Court: Wabash case- Granger law rejected [6]		George Westinghouse – transformer, AC power	*Workers:* American Federation of Labor (AFL) –
1886				Apache – Geronimo – exiled
1886-05					Haymarket Square Massacre – Be sure you look up the key words the textbook uses in explaining this event, including the word used here massacre.
1887-02				Dawes Severalty Act[7]
1887-04			Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) (List)

Keywords List on Railroad Trends:

Rebate – Caution: this is not the word as we use it today.

pool

short haul

long haul

Keywords List on ICC:

Commission form

rebate – Caution: this is not the word as we use it today.

pooling

federal regulatory agency

Keywords List on Standard Oil and Emergence of Trusts:

Rebate – Caution: this is not the word as we use it today.

“drawback” – Caution: not in the 4^th edition so ask

monopoly at 90%

trust – What does that have to do with the law? Who grants the legal power of being a corporation to a corporation?

holding company

Keywords on Workers:

immigration – who, where from, where to, how

unions – What does the word mean? What is the difference in AFL and Knights of Labor? – See the link in Resources

industrialization

notice skilled workers and what is happening to them

notice child labor – What does the word mean?

notice workers the West (the mines, cattle ranching)

notice workers in the South (lumber workers, mill workers, tobacco workers)

Keywords on Farmers in the West:

Mortgages (debt) and rate of interest

kind of equipment

water (irrigation and dry land farming)

Keywords on Farmers in the South:

sharecropping

tenant framing

debt and rate of interest

Key words on Blacks and Minorities:

1879 Blacks: Exodusters

1881 Blacks: Tuskegee Institute – Alabama – Booker T. Washington

1882 Chinese Exclusion Act

1883 Civil Rights Cases – not on individual actions

1896 Plessy v. Ferguson

Keywords on Intellectual Trends:

1879 Progress and Poverty – Henry George – “single tax”

1880s Social Darwinism- William Graham Sumner, Andrew Carnegie

1881 A Century of Dishonor – Helen Hunt Jackson

1883 Dynamic Sociology – Lester Frank Ward

1888 Looking Backward – Edward Bellamy

1890s Social Gospel

Keywords on Literary Trends:

Horatio Alger stories

Mark Twain

Keywords on Education (What is graduate school? Why would a nation need it?:

1876 John Hopkins University, Baltimore

1890 University of Chicago

1891 Stanford University

[1] Grangers are another name for Patrons of Husbandry, and Granger Laws are laws that group supported. These laws are first talked about in the prior chapter.

[2] Cattle ranchers want – Law to acquire 640 acres for a small amount initially (25 cents an acre initially) and then, after claiming they had irrigated for another small amount ($1.00)

[3] Lumber companies want – Law to acquire 160 acres for a small amount ($2.50) in “false entries to gain title to valuable timber holdings.”

[4] New leader, Terence V. Powderly; title, “grand master workman” – This is 1 of the 2 major unions of the era. The other is the American Federation of Labor.

[5] Notice the Garfield assassination and this law. The legislation is also talked about as the merit system and sometimes as Civil Service.

[6] Full name: Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railway v. Illinois

[7] The word severalty means to own property individually. Native Americans owned land as a tribe.

WCJC Department:	History – Dr. Bibus
Contact Information:	281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu
Last Updated:	2012
WCJC Home:	http://www.wcjc.edu/