This document provides a timeline of key events in United States history between 1865-1895. Some highlights include the Homestead Act of 1862 which gave settlers free western land, completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, Jacob Riis exposing the hardships of New York City's poor in the 1870s, Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone in 1876, and the massacre of Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee in 1890. The timeline shows the industrialization, westward expansion, and social/political changes during the post-Civil War Gilded Age.

1. Timeline
1865-1895
Created By: Maggie Fraboni
1850 1857 1862
Henry Bessemer Congress passed the Homesteaders: Settlers
Frederick Law
created the Homestead Act. on the free land from the
Olmsted helped
Bessemer Process homestead act.
draw up a plan for
“Greenwood”
(central park) in New
York City.

2. 1864 1867 1868
Chivington and his Stockholders in the Oliver Hudson . Tammany Hall:
troops attack on the Pacific Union Kelley started the New York Cities
Cheyenne and Railroad form the patrons of powerful democratic
Arapaho. Known as Credit Mobilier husbandry political machine
the Sand Creek headed by Boss
Massacre. Tweed.

3. 1869 1870’s
Completion of the Tweed Ring: group of George
Great plains: John D.
Transcontinental corrupt politicians Westinghouse
vast grassland Rockefeller
Railroad invented the
that extends established the
railroad breaking
through the standard oil
system using
central portion of company
compressed air.
North America
from Texas to
Canada.

4. 1870’s
Jacob Riis used Political Patronage: Fredrick Law Segregation Graft:
his job as a police machine: group giving of Olmstead passed by illegal use of
reporter to expose that controlled government jobs planned the southern states to political
the hardships of activities of a to people who had landscaping for separate white influence for
New York Cities political party and helped a Washington D.C. and blacks in personal
poor. offered services to candidate get and St. Louis public and private gain
voters and elected facilities
businesses in
exchange for
political or
financial support

5. 1872 1873 1874 1875
Montgomery Ward Andrew Carnegie George Armstrong Eugene V. Debs
and Sears Roebuck entered the steel Custer reported helped organize a
launch the Mail- business and gold in the Black local lodge of the
order catalogue manufactured more Hills and started the brotherhood of
steel than all gold rush. locomotive firemen;
factories in Great organized the
Britain. American Railway
Union.

6. June 1876 1876
Sitting Bull had a Sitting Bull took Thomas Alva Alexander Graham
vision of Native refuge in Canada Edison established Bell invented the
Americans falling until 1881 worlds first research telephone along with
from their horses; laboratory in Menlo Thomas Watson
Defeated Custer at Park NJ. Perfected
the Battle of Little the light bulb and
Big Horn later invented an
entire system for
producing and
distributing electrical
power.

7. 1879 1880’s
Dumbbell George Pullman Establishment of Period following the
Tenements were built factory for Settlement Houses civil war; known as
built in NYC after the manufacturing for slum the Gilded Age
tenement house act sleepers and other neighborhoods
of 1879 railroad cars on the
Illinois

8. 1880’s
Kickbacks: illegal Ragtime: blend of 17 million
payments for their African American immigrants passed
services spirituals and through Ellis Island;
European musical the chief immigration
forms; led to Jazz, station.
rhythm & blues, and
rock n’ roll.

9. 1881 1883
George Booker T. Joseph Pulitzer Civil Service:
Westinghouse Washington bought NY world; his government
founded the Union headed Tuskegee paper emphasized administration.
Switch and signal normal and industrial “sin, sex, and Resulted in
institute. Pendleton Civil
sensation”
Service Act.

10. 1885 1886 May 4th 1886 1887
Sitting Bull Samuel Gompers 3,000 people Dawes Act passed Interstate
appeared in “Buffalo led the cigar makers gathered at to “Americanize” the Commerce
Bill” wild west show. international union Chicago’s Native Americans Commission
to join with other Haymarket Square reestablished right of
craft unions. to protest. A bomb federal government
was thrown in the to supervise railroad
police line, 7 police activities.
officers and several
workers died. Known
as the Haymarket
Affair

11. 1888 1889 1890
George Eastman Jane Addams Passed the
introduced the founded Chicago’s Police killed Sitting Sherman Anti-trust
Kodac Camera hull house. Bull during the act making it legal to
Ghost Dance form a trust that
interfered with free
trade between states
or with other
countries.

12. 1890 December 1890
Grandfather Vaudeville Theater A Paiute prophet
Custer’s old
Clause: stated even performed song, promised the Sioux regiment rounded up
if a man failed the dance, juggling, if they performed the 350 Sioux and took
literacy test or slapstick comedy, Ghost Dance their them to a camp at
couldn’t afford the and sometimes land and way of life
Wounded Knee; a
poll tax, he could still chorus lines of would be restored; shot was fired; the
vote if he, his father, females. Movement spread soldiers open fired
or grandfather had among 25.000 Sioux
slaughtering 300
been eligible to vote on the Dakota Native Americans.
before January 1st Reservations.
1867.

13. March 9th 1892 June 29th 1892 July 2nd 1892 1894
Ida B Wells wrote in Henry Clay Frick A populist party Pullmans strike:
free speech and hired scabs convention, known Pullman refused to
headlight urging (strikebreakers) to as the Omaha lower rents after
blacks to leave keep the steel platform, demanded cutting his
Memphis after her company operating. reforms to lift the employees pay.
three friends were burden of debt from
lynched. farmers and other
workers and to give
the people a greater
voice.

14. 1895 1896
William Randolph Web Dubois: first Plessey Vs. Republicans Democrats
Hearst purchased African American to Ferguson: Supreme nominate William nominated William
NY morning journal; receive a doctorate Court ruled that the McKinley as their Jennings Bryan to
filled it with from Harvard. separation of races candidate in the run for president.
exaggerated tales, in public election. Lost to McKinley
scandals, cruelty, accommodations with 6.5 million
hypnotism, and was legal and did votes.
imaginary conquest not violate the
of Mars. fourteenth
amendment.

15. 1896 1902 1903 1905 1910
William Jennings Debt Peonage: 50,000 Chinese
Orville and Wilber Web Dubois
Bryan delivered the system that bound Wright designed the immigrants entered
founded Niagara
Cross of Gold the US through
laborers into slavery first biplane; Its first movement.
Speech at the Angel Island.
in order to work off a successful flight was
democratic debt to the Gateway for Asians
in Kitty Hawk NC.
convention. Stating arriving on the west
employer.
he wanted gold and coast.
silver to be part of
the currency.