Charles Courtney Curran (American, 1861-1942)
Shadow Decoration, 1887, Oil on canvas
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York
Purchase, 1887.2

1885

Washington Monument dedicated in Washington DC

New York establishes Adirondack Forest Preserve 

Kaweah Colony (Socialist) founded in California

Topolobampo Colony founded in Sinaloa, Mexico

Anti-Chinese violence by Knights of Labor miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, results in burning to death of Chinese miners; subsequent anti-Chinese riots in Seattle Tacoma, and many towns in Oregon and Northern California; includes assaults and forcible expulsion of Chinese miners and agricultural workers (1885-1886)

Cloakmakers’ general strike, New York City, over wages and working hours (1885-1886)

Carpet weavers’ strike, Yonkers, New York, over union recognition (1885-1886)

Series of two strikes against Jay Gould’s Southwest Railroad, along the Missouri Pacific, Kansas and Texas, and Wabash lines; after Gould reneges on agreement, riots erupt in Ft. Worth, Texas, and Parsons, Kansas; the killing of nine strikers in East St. Louis precipitates riots and imposition of martial law (1885-1886)

McCormick Harvesting Machine Company strike, Chicago, over wage cuts; repeated violent clashes occur in front of plant, with strikers facing off against replacement workers, Pinkerton detectives, and Chicago police (1885-1886)

George Washington Cable, The Silent South

Laurence Gronlund, The Cooperative Commonwealth

William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham

Albert Kimsey Owen, Integral Cooperation

Josiah Strong, Our Country

American Economic Association founded

Inventor Charles Tainter introduces the Dictaphone

William Stanley patents the electric transformer

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

Holy Family Sisters (Roman Catholic) arrive in United States from Italy

1886

“Liberty Enlightening the World” dedicated in New York harbor

US v. Kagama

Yick Wo v. Hopkins strikes down California laws that discriminate against Chinese

In Wabash v. Illinois, Supreme Court sets limit on government regulation of railroads

Nehalem Valley Cooperative Colony founded in Oregon

Twenty blacks massacred in Carrollton, Mississippi

Anti-Chinese riots in Washington Territory; martial law declared

May 1 national strike for the Eight-Hour day; over 350,000 suspend work activities, with labor militancy especially strong in Chicago; in Detroit, participation by workers at Michigan Car Works precipitates violence

Continued violence in Chicago McCormick strike, including police killing of two strikers, leads to protest meeting at Haymarket Square; bomb thrown by unknown person kills a policeman and more are killed by ensuing police fire; nationwide hysteria over anarchist threat; eight Chicago anarchists sentenced to hang.

Textile stirke in Augusta, Georgia, over low wages and “pass system” that bars workers from seeking higher wages from a new employer; lockout follows

Cowboy strike in Wyoming, to protest layoffs and wage cuts

Collar laundresses strike and lockout in Troy, NY, over wages and union recognition

Labor-related riots in Milwaukee result in seven deaths

American Federation of Labor founded

Henry James, The Bostonians

First settlement house in United States established in New York

First Coca-Cola sold in Atlanta, Georgia

First Tournament of Roses held in Pasadena, California

Dwight Moody founded Bible Institute for Home and Foreign Missions

1887

Dawes Allotment Act

Edmunds-Tucker Act makes further attempts to abolish polygamy and limit Mormon power in Utah Territory, and disfranchises the Territory’s women

With Interstate Commerce Act, Congress establishes Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate and oversee interstate trade  

Reciprocity Treaty between US and Hawai’i renewed; as condition for renewal US requires and receives a lease to use Pearl Harbor as a naval base; US imposes “bayonet constitution” on the islands

Florida segregates railroad cars

Massachusetts Bureau of Labor uses the term “unemployment” for the first time, in its modern usage, in one of its reports

New York Longshoremen’s strike over wage cuts; spreads to Hoboken and other New Jersey ports

Vigilantes attack and murder Chinese miners in Hell’s Canyon on Idaho-Oregon border

American Protective Association, an anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant organization, is founded

The "Pilgrim Fathers" of 250 years Ago. The "Pilgrim Fathers" of To-Day. Just as Dangerous Now as Then.
Puck, Jan. 1883, p.288.

Puget Sound Cooperative Colony (Socialist) founded in Washington

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

First women’s national tennis championship played in Philadelphia

Olivetan Benedictine Sisters (Roman Catholic) formed in Arkansas 

1888

Benjamin Harrison, Republican, defeats President Grover Cleveland, Democrat, in the US presidential election; popular vote 5,477,129 to 5,537,857; electoral vote 233 to 168. Minor candidates include Clinton Fisk on the Prhoibition ticket, Anson J. Streeter on the Union Labor ticket, and Belva Lockwood on the National Equal Rights ticket

Bayard-Chamberlain Treaty

Massachusetts is first state to adopt Australian ballot system

Mississippi segregates railroad cars

Burlington Railroad workers’ strike on lines running from Chicago to Colorado and Wyoming; armed clashes between strikers and Pinkerton detectives, trains burned and dynamited

Cincinnati shoemakers’ lockout over wages and union recognition

International Association of Machinists founded  

National Colored Farmers’ Alliance and Cooperative Union founded

Boone and Crockett Club, a hunters’ organization dedicated to preserving game animals, founded in New York

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

George Eastman develops and patents hand-held “Kodak” camera

Nikola Tesla introduces first motor running on alternating current, enabling electric power to be transmitted over large distances

Herman Hollerith invents a punch-card tabulating machine, used in the 1890 census, that underlays the technology for early “computers”

Richmond, Virginia, installs the nation’s first electric trolley system

Columbia Cooperative Colony founded in Oregon

1889

North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming enter the Union (39th, 40th, 41st, and 42nd states)

Texas segregates railroad cars

First use of electric chair for execution, in New York state; execution botched

Mexican-American White Caps (Gorras Blancas) organize in New Mexico; destroy barbed wire fences, rail lines, crops, houses, and bridges and engage in beatings and violence to protest Anglo intrusion (1889-1890)

Textile workers strike in Fall River, MA, over wages, safety, and pace of work; strikers beat and stone replacement workers

Professional baseball players’ revolt against the National League; strikers run their own league, the Players’ League, which competes with the NL for one season (1889-1890)

Commercial Union of American States formed

Farmers’ Incorporated Cooperative Society founded in Rockwell, Iowa

Hull House settlement founded in Chicago

General Federation of Women’s Clubs founded

American Academy of Political and Social Science founded

Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth”

Bronson Howard, "Shenandoah" (play)  

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

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

Stunt reporter Nellie Bly, under sponsorship of the New York World, circles the world in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes, beating the fictional record set in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days

Singer Sewing Machine Co. produces first electric sewing machine in America

Otis Elevator Co. installs the country’s first electric elevators in a New York office building

Safety bicycles manufactured in the United States, beginning a bicycle craze

Catholic church disbands and excommunicates last Penitentes, a lay brotherhood in the Southwest

Prophecies of Paiute visionnary Wovoka initiate spread of Ghost Dance among western Indian peoples 

1890

Economic depression hits, lasting through 1891

Idaho and Wyoming enter the Union (43rd and 44th states)

In Minnesota Rate Case, the Supreme Court limits government regulation of shipping rates

Lodge Elections Bill, providing federal oversight of polls when petitioned by local citizens, defeated by one vote in the Senate

Congress passes Sherman Antitrust Act

McKinley Tariff passed

Forest Reserve Act authorizes president to set aside public lands as forest reserves

Sequoia National Park established  

California returns Yosemite Valley to federal control as a national park

Department of Agriculture becomes a cabinet-level agency

“Mississippi Plan” uses an array of measures to disfranchise black, poor, and illiterate voters; soon copied by other southern states

Louisiana segregates railroad cars

Gorras Blancas (White Caps), protesting Anglo intrusion, issue manifesto in New Mexico

Massacre of Sioux Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee, South Dakota

Carpenters’ eight-hour day strike wins gains in 137 cities

Pan-American Union founded

United Mine Workers founded

AWSA and NWSA merge to form NAWSA

Afro-American League formed in Chicago

University of Chicago founded

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

Louis Sullivan designs Wainwright Building, St. Louis

Charles “Buddy” Bolden forms jazz band in New Orleans

First Army-Navy football game

Mormon Church officially renounces doctrine of polygamy, paving the way for Utah statehood

1891

United States becomes party to an international copyright bill protecting copyrights in US and Europe

King David Kalakaua of Hawai'i dies; his sister Liliuokalani ascends the throne

Mob in Chile kills two American sailors, creating international incident and calls for war with Chile

Catarino Garza organizes Mexican-American force in Texas and invades northern Mexico to oppose Diaz regime; pursued by both Mexican and US troops, flees to Cuba  

Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Georgia segregate railroad cars

Court of Private Land Claims adjudicates conflicting property claims in the Southwest (1891-1904)

Eleven Italian-Americans, tried for the murder of New Orleans’ police chief and acquitted, are lynched by a mob

Chinese sugar-cane workers strike, Hawai’i, over deductions from wages; violently crushed by police

Black dockworkers’ strike, Savannah, GA, over wage cuts

Coal miners’ strike, eastern Tennessee, over “scrip” pay and competition from convict labor; strikers forcibly remove convict laborers from the mining regions and burn convict stockades; military force used in response

National Women’s Alliance founded

Throop University, later renamed Caltech, founded in California

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

Hamlin Garland, Main-Traveled Roads

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

Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, a motion-picture technology

Inventor Jesse Reno develops the escalator

American Sugar Refining Company founded

Basketball invented by YMCA athletics instructors

Salvation Army opens Lighthouse shelter in New York City

Orello Cone publishes Gospel Criticism and Historical Christianity

1892

Ellis Island opens as major US processing center for European immigration

Boll weevils begin to wreak devastation on cotton crops in Texas

Grover Cleveland, Democrat, defeats Benjamin Harrison, Republican, and James B. Weaver, Populist, to win a second term (non-consecutive) as US president; popular vote 5,555,429 to 5,182,690, electoral vote 277 to 145, with Weaver winning 1,029,846 votes and 22 electoral votes. Minor candidates include John Bidwell on the Prohibition ticket and Simon Wing on the Socialist Labor ticket

Bering Sea dispute

Geary Act extends Chinese exclusion for the next decade and requires registration of all Chinese living in the United States

Convention of reformers in St. Louis to discuss creation of a People’s Party

First national People’s Party convention in Omaha, Nebraska

Dalton Gang active in the West; raids Coffeyville, Kansas

Powder River War (or Johnson County War) between cattlemen, Wyoming

Steel workers lockout at Carnegie Steelworks, Homestead, PA, over union recognition, leads to burning of barges, pitched battle between strikers and large contingent of Pinkerton detectives; US troops sent to impose order

Hardrock miners’ strike in Couer d’Alene district, Idaho, over wage reductions precipitates a lockout, gunfights, and the dynamiting of mine property; National Guard and federal troops impose martial law and carry out mass detentions of strikers

New Orleans general strike for ten-hour day, overtime pay, and union recognition; a cross-racial effort in a number of trades and industries, it is defeated by a mass show of force on the part of state authorities

American Psychological Association founded

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Thomas Nelson Page, The Old South

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “The Solitude of Self”

Ida B. Wells, Southern Horrors: Lynch-Law in All Its Phases

Walt Whitman publishes final version of Leaves of Grass

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

Sierra Club founded in California with leadership of John Muir

American Fine Arts Society founded

Frank Lloyd Wright designs first private home in Chicago

American Telephone and Telegraph opens long-distance telephone service between New York and Chicago

General Electric Company founded

James Corbett knocks out John L. Sullivan and wins world heavyweight boxing title

1893

Major economic depression hits, lasting through at least 1897 (some historians argue longer, through 1898 or beyond)

Hawai’i’s Queen Lili’uokalani attempts to replace US-imposed “bayonet constitution” of 1887 with her own

constittuion; US facilitates coup against her; coup leaders declare Republic of Hawai’i the following year

Federal Railroad Safety Appliance Act requires air brakes on all trains

Women gain full suffrage in Colorado

Doolin Gang active in Indian Territory (1893-1896); Bill Doolin killed at Lawson by a posse, 1896

American Railway Union founded

Western Federation of Miners founded

Livingston Street Settlement founded in New York City

Cooperative Brotherhood of Winters Island (Socialist) founded in California

Hiawatha Colony (Socialist) founded in Michigan

Stephen Crane, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets

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

Inventor W. L. Judson patents the zipper

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

Ice hockey introduced to United States

World’s Parliament of Religions, Chicago

Mormon Temple dedicated at Salt Lake City, Utah

Shiloh Movement (Church of the Living God) organized in Maine

Swami Vivekanada of India tours the United States; Vedanta Movement founded

Zion City (theocratic colony) founded in Illinois 

1894

Congress passes federal progressive income tax

Carey Desert Land Act grants federal land to the states for irrigation companies to develop and settle

Federal Bureau of Immigraton created

Labor Day made a national legal holiday

Commonweal of Christ (Coxey’s Army) marches to Washington, DC, seeking federal jobs for unemployed

American Railway Union organizes nationwide boycott of Pullman Cars, in solidarity with strike at Pullman Car Works, Chicago; strike spreads across the West, armed clashes and mob violence result in Chicago and many other cities result after US troops intervene to break strike

Hardrock miners’ strike in Cripple Creek, CO, for eight-hour da precipitates fierce violence between Western Federation of Miners and National Guard; the Strong Mine is dynamited

Great Northern Railroad Strike, on lines stretching from Minneapolis to Seattle, over wage cuts

Fall River, MA, textile workers strike over wage levels

Alianza Hispano Americana founded in Tucson, Arizona

Altruria Colony (Christian Socialist) formed in California

Colorado Cooperative Colony (Single-Tax) formed in Colorado

Glennis Cooperative Colony (Bellamy Nationalist) founded in Tacoma, Washington

Home Employment Cooperative Colony founded in Missouri

Field Museum of Natural History founded in Chicago

Purdue University leads in creation of Western Conference (now Big Ten) in college football

William Hope Harvey, Coin’s Financial School

William Dean Howells, A Traveler from Altruria

Henry Demorest Lloyd, Wealth Against Commonwealth

John Muir, The Mountains of California

Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson

First trials of diphtehria antitoxin

Pope Leo XIII issues encyclical Rerum Novarum on industrialization and labor

Shaker colony founded in Narcoosee, Florida