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

[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:	2017
WCJC Home:	http://www.wcjc.edu/