"The Light They Cannot Stand. The Power that will Disperse the Clouds which Hang Over the Sunny South."
Puck. Jan. 1883, p.279.

1865

Vassar College opens as first women’s college offering curriculum modeled on men’s Ivy League

Atlanta University, GA, founded

Yale University awards first Ph.D. in the United States

1866

Fisk University, Nashville, TN, founded

1867

Howard University, Washington, DC, founded

J. W. DeForest, Miss Ravenel’s Conversion from Secession to Loyalty

1868

University of California is created

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

John Rollin Ridge, Cherokee, publishes first volume of poetry published by a Native American author

1869

Hayden Expedition begins geological survey of western lands

John Wesley Powell navigates the Grand Canyon with an exploring party

Charles Eliot named president of Harvard, begins instituting curriculum changes that form the basis of the modern liberal arts

Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad

1870

Congress incorporates Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, DC

1871

Polaris Expedition

Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas

1872

Mark Twain, Roughing It

John Gast paints “American Progress”

1873

St. Louis opens first public kindergarten

Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age

1875

Smith and Wellesley Colleges founded in Massachusetts

Thomas Eakins, “The Gross Clinic” (painting)

Richard Dugdale, The Jukes

1876

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, establishes graduate school curriculum that becomes a model nationwide

Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia

John W. Draper photographs the solar spectrum

Mathematician Josiah Gibbs publishes a paper on thermodynamics that establishes the basis for physical chemistry

Melvil Dewey introduces Dewey decimal system for library organization

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

1877

Astronomer Asaph Hall identifies the two moons that orbit Mars

Extensive dinosaur fossil beds discovered in Como Bluffs, Wyoming

1878

John Wesley Powell, Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States

Henry James, The Europeans

1879

Art Institute of Chicago founded

Carlisle Indian School founded in Pennsylvania

US Geological Survey created to study the nation’s topography and nature resources

Henry George, Progress and Poverty

Henry James, Daisy Miller

1880

Henry Adams, Democracy

Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad

Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur

1881

Booker T. Washington founds Tuskegee Institute, Alabama

Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia, founded

Wharton School of Finance created at University of Pennsylvania

Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus, His Songs and Sayings

Henry James, Portrait of a Lady

1882

Henry Adams, John Randolph

Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper

1883

Modern Language Association founded

Metropolitan Opera opens in New York

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

Lester Frank Ward, Dynamic Sociology

1884

American Historical Association founded

Bryn Mawr College established in Pennsylvania

John Fiske, Excursions of an Evolutionist

Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona

Sarah Orne Jewett, A Country Doctor

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

First volume of the History of Woman Suffrage, edited Susan B. Anthony, Ida Husted Harper, et al., published

Image courtesy the Victorian Scrapbook at
 The Trade Card Place.

1885

American Economic Association founded

Washington Monument dedicated in Washington DC

Astronomers witness the birth of a star in the Andromeda Nebula

Three children from Newark, New Jersey, treated for rabies at Louis Pasteur’s clinic in France; first Americans whose lives were probably saved by his treatment

George Washington Cable, The Silent South

Laurence Gronlund, The Cooperative Commonwealth

William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham

Josiah Strong, Our Country

1886

“Liberty Enlightening the World” dedicated in New York harbor

Henry James, The Bostonians

1887

Marine Biological Laboratory founded at Woods Hole, Massachusetts

Albert Michelson, researcher and teacher at US Naval Academy, seeks to measure velocity of light and establishes that there is no “luminiferous ether” in space

National Geographic Society is founded

1888

Babylonian Expedition Fund of University of Pennsylvania’s Museum launches its first archaeological expedition to Nippur (in today’s Iraq)

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000-1887

James Bryce, The American Commonwealth

Russell Conwell, Acres of Diamonds

1889

American Academy of Political and Social Science founded

Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth”

Bronson Howard, Shenandoah (play)

Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West (1889-1896 )

1890

University of Chicago founded

Louis Sullivan designs Wainwright Building, St. Louis

Charles “Buddy” Bolden forms jazz band in New Orleans

George Washington Cable, The Negro Question

James Herne, Margaret Fleming (play)

William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes

William James, Principles of Psychology

Alfred Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives

1891

Throop University, later renamed Caltech, founded in California

Astronomer James Keeler shows that Saturn’s rings are made up of small particles

Sophia Alice Callahan (Creek), A Child of the Forest

Hamlin Garland, Main-Traveled Roads

1892

Researcher Theobald Smith demonstrates that Texas cattle fever is spread by ticks, paving the way for further discoveries of insect-borne pathogens

American Fine Arts Society founded

American Psychological Association founded

Frank Lloyd Wright designs first private home in Chicago

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (story)

Thomas Nelson Page, The Old South

Walt Whitman publishes final version of Leaves of Grass

1893

World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago; includes world’s first Ferris Wheel

World’s Parliament of Religions, Chicago

Frederick Jackson Turner delivers “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” American Historical Association

Stephen Crane, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets

1894

First trials of diphtehria antitoxin

Field Museum of Natural History founded in Chicago

William Dean Howells, A Traveler from Altruria

John Muir, The Mountains of California

Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson

1895

Boston Public Library opens

At Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Booker T. Washington delivers “Atlanta Compromise” address

Katherine Lee Bates writes “America the Beautiful”

Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

Elizabeth Cady Stanton et al, The Woman’s Bible

1896

X-ray first used to treat breast cancer

George Washington Carver appointed director of agricultural research at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama

Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and Decay

Abraham Cahan, Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto

Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware

Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs

1897

William James, The Will to Believe

Edward Arlington Robinson, The Children of the Night (poetry)

1898

Biltmore Forest School created for study of forestry

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Woman and Economics

Peter Finley Dunne, Mr. Dooley in Peace and War

Henry James, The Turn of the Screw

James Luther Long, “Madame Butterfly” (story)

1899

Enrico Marconi demonstrates wireless technology by broadcasting news of the America’s Cup yacht race

The boats three miles from the finish, ten minutes before the race was called off.
"The First Trial for the 'America's' Cup - The Yachts at Work." Harper's Weekly. Oct. 1899, p.1040.

Charles Chesnutt, The Conjure Woman

Kate Chopin, The Awakening

John Dewey, The School and Society

W.E.B. DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro

Frank Norris, McTeague

John Philip Sousa, “The Stars and Stripes Forever” (music)

Thorstein Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class

Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” helps popularizes ragtime nationwide

1900

Walter Reed demontrates that yellow fever is a virus transmitted by mosquitoes

L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

David Belasco, Madame Butterfly (play)

Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie

Jack London, The Son of the Wolf

Josiah Strong, Expansion

1901

Rockefeller Institute for Medican Research founded in New York City

First College Board examinations are given

Jokichi Takamine, Japanese-American researcher at Johns Hopkins University, isolates the hormone adrenaline

Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo

Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition

John Muir, Our National Parks

Frank Norris, The Octopus

Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery

1902

Metropolitan Museum of Art founded in New York

Researcher Walter Sutton establishes the basis for modern genetics by demonstrating that chromosones come in pairs and carry inherited traits

Photographer Alfred Stieglitz begins journal Camera Work

Henry James, The Wings of the Dove

William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

Helen Keller, The Story My Life

Ida Tarbell, History of the Standard Oil Company

Owen Wister, The Virginian

1903

New York publisher Joseph Pulitzer establishes Pulitzer Prizes

First commercial wireless broadcast station opens on Cape Cod

Mary Austin, Land of Little Rain

W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

Henry James, The Ambassadors

Jack London, The Call of the Wild

Frank Norris, The Pit

Kate Douglas Wiggin, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

“The Great Train Robbery,” film

1904

Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis

Lewis Hine begins his career photographing immigrants at Ellis Island

Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa), An Indian Boyhood

Ellen Glasgow, The Deliverance

G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence

O. Henry, Cabbages and Kings

Robert Hunter, Poverty

Jack London, The Sea Wolf

Henry James, The Golden Bowl

Astronomer Charles Perrine discovers Jupiter’s sixth and seventh moons (1904-1905)

1905

David Belasco, “The Girl of the Golden West” (play)

Thomas Dixon, The Clansman

Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

Clarence Kerr Chatterton (American, 1880-1973)
The Vassar Trolley, 1916, Oil on canvas
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York
Gift of Stephanie B. Schmidt in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen P. Becker, 1995.16