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 notice the keyword 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  and “drawback” Caution: these words meant something different in the Gilded Age than we mean today, and Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary cannot help you. These words do however usually get students to realize how monopoly happened in this period. They are not test questions, but, if you want to know, just ask

 

monopoly of oil 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



 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2017

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu

Last Updated:

2017

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/

 

 



[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.