1895

Cuban nationalists living in the United States and other countries return to Cuba to launch revolution against Spanish rule

In boundary dispute between British Guiana and Venezuela, US asserts right to interfere in such disputes in the Western Hemisphere; resolved with British agreement to accept arbitration

South Carolina adopts disfranchisement legislation

In Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust, Supreme Court rules federal progressive income tax unconstitutional unless the tax can be apportioned by state rather than by individual, a stipulation that proves unworkable

In US v. E. C. Knight Company, Supreme Court rules that Sherman Antitrust Act does not give the federal government power to regulate the sugar monopoly

Race riot in New Orleans leaves six blacks dead

Haverhill, MA, shoe factory workers’ strike over wage cuts

National Association of Manufacturers holds first meeting in Ohio

Native Sons of the Golden West, a Chinese civil rights group, founded in San Francisco

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

George B. Selden develops and patents an internal combustion engine; Frank Duryea introduces gasoline-driven motors, key to development of the automobile

The Baltimore & Ohio begins to use electric locomotives, the first US railroad to do so

First pneumatic tires manufactured by Hart Rubber Works, Connecticut

Volleyball invented by YMCA athletic instructors

First United States Golf Association amateur championship and first US Open in golf held back-to-back at Newport, R.I.; first USGA Women’s amateur held at Westbury, NY

Cotton States Exposition, Atlanta

Evangelist Billy Sunday begins his preaching career

Formation of National Baptist Convention of the USA, largest black denomination in the country

Shiloh community (Church of the Living God) founded in Maine

Vedanta Movement forms first communal ashrams in US cities

Willard Cooperative Colonies (Christian Prohibitionist) founded in North Carolina and Tennessee

Fairhope colony (Single-Tax) formed in Alabama

Salvation Army denounces lynching

1896

William McKinley, Republican, defeats William Jennings Bryan, Democrat, in the US presidential election; popular vote 7,102,246 to 6,492,559, electoral vote 271 to 176; Populist party also endorses Bryan but he does not acknowledge their support; minor candidates include Joshua Levering on the Prohibition ticket and John Palmer on the Gold Democratic (National Democratic) ticket

Utah enters the Union (45th state)

Congress provides rural free mail delivery (RFD); all Americans can now receive mail at home free of charge

Congress passes resolution condemning Sultan Abdul Hamid II for massacre of Armenians; first US international human rights resolution

In Ward v. Race Horse, Supreme Court upholds right of government to prosecute Indians caught hunting on unoccupied public lands

Hardrock miners’ strike in Leadville, CO, precipitates violence as mine owners and state leaders vow to clean out union; gun fights, dynamiting incidents, and attack on Coronado Mine (1896-1897)

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

Atlanta University holds first Conference on Negro Problems

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

“Yellow Kid” color comic appears and popularizes Sunday newspaper comics

Fannie Farmer, The Boston Cooking School Cook Book

National Association of Colored Women founded

First meeting of American Negro Academy in Chicago

Home Colony (Anarchist) founded in Washington

Guglielmo Marconi demonstrates wireless telegraph, soon to be the basis of radio

X-ray first used to treat breast cancer

Charles M. Sheldon, In His Steps, or, What Would Jesus Do?

Father John Zahm publishes Evolution and Dogma; suppressed by the Vatican

Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary founded, first yeshiva in the country

Christian Commonwealth Colony founded in Columbus, Georgia

Christian Corporation, a socialist colony, founded in Lincoln, Nebraska

1897

Massacre of Slavic coal miners in Lattimer, PA, as miners march for higher wages and an end to “scrip” pay; 50 dead or wounded

Social Democracy of America founded, forerunner of Social Democratic Party

National Congress of Mothers founded

William James, The Will to Believe

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

Klondike gold rush begins

Jell-O introduced

First Boston Marathon

Jewish Daily Forward begins publication in New York

Theosophical Movement founds Temple of the People in Syracuse, New York, and Point Loma Colony in San Diego, California

1898

In U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, Supreme Court rules that all people born in the United States are US citizens irrespective of race

In Holden v. Hardy, Supreme Court lets stand state regulations for health and safety in notably dangerous industries (such as mining)

South Carolina segregates railroad cars

Louisiana adopts disfranchisement legislation

In Spanish-American War, US enters Cuban revolution on side of revolutionaries against Spanish rule, but displaces them on the battlefield and in treaty negotiations; claims Guam and Puerto Rico, pays Spain $20 million for the Philippines

Teller Amendment passes Congress, asserting that US seeks full Cuban independence and will not interfere in the affairs of Cuba as a free nation

US annexes Hawai’ian Islands, Wake Island, and Palmyra in the Pacific Ocean

Anti-Imperialist League founded in Boston to oppose US imperialist policies

Marlboro, MA, shoe workers’ strike over wage levels

Blacks terrorized and murdered and Republican/Populist officials forcibly removed from office in Wilmington, NC

National Afro-American Council created

National Consumers’ League founded

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)

Boston begins operating the first US subway system

Last year for decades that any African-American professional baseball player appears in National League games  

Christian Commercial Men’s Association (Gideons International) founded

Christian Cooperative colonies founded in Kansas, Georgia, and Washington

Burley Cooperative Commonwealth (socialist) founded in Washington

Salvation Army forms unemployment colonies in California, Colorado, and Ohio

Shaker colony founded in White Oak, Georgia

1899

Philippine-American War (1899-1902, with sporadic episodes of resistance continuing over the next three decades)

US sends troops to Samoa to assert US rights

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Harper's Weekly, Feb. 1899, p.180.

In Addystone Pipe case the Supreme Court upholds government right to prosecute corporations for price-fixing

Mt. Rainier National Park created

Nation’s first juvenile court established in Chicago

Delaware loosens corporate law, creating the “Delaware corporation”

North Carolina segregates railroad cars

Hague Conference on armaments and war held in the Netherlands

Grain shovelers’ strike in Buffalo, NY, over wages and system of using saloons as labor centers

Street railway workers’ strike in Cleveland, OH, over speedup and safety issues; strikers attack and beat strikebreakers

Hardrock miners’ strike in Couer d’Alene district, Idaho, over union recognition and wages; precipitates armed clashes and dynamiting of Bunker Hill Mine property; US Army imposes martial law, large numbers of striking miners are
rounded up and held for extended periods in stockades

Newsboys in New York strike over pay; spreads to other parts of New York state, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and to bootblacks and messenger boys

Brotherhood of Teamsters founded

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

Harmony Colony (Populist/Socialist) founded in Washington

Niksur Cooperative Association (Socialist) founded in Minnesota

Straight Edge Industrial Settlement founded in New York City

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

Pope Leo XIII issues Testem Benevolentiae, warning against “theological Americanism”

Christian Social Association colony founed in Sarona, Wisconsin

1900

William McKinley, Republican, wins re-election as US president over William Jennigns Bryan, Democrat; popular vote 7,218,491 to 6,356,734 , electoral vote 292 to 155; minor candidates include John C. Wooley on the Prohibition ticket, Seth Ellis on the Unio Reform ticket, Wharton Barker on the Anti-Fusionist People’s ticket, and Eugene Debs on the Social Democratic ticket

US establishes “protectorate” in American Samoa

US troops join European and Japanese forces to put down patriotic revolt of “Boxers” in China, protesting foreign domination

Lacey Act provides federal wildlife protection

Robert LaFollette elected as progressive governor of Wisconsin; implements “Wisconsin idea” of using social science expertise for better government

North Carolina adopts disfranchisement legislation

Virginia segregates railroad cars

Riot in Akron, Ohio

Race riot in New Orleans

Japanese, Chinese, and Portuguese sugar-cane workers strike, Hawai’i, over low pay

Anthracite coal strike in PA, over working conditions, leads to armed battles between sheriff’s men and strikers in Shenandoah and Oneida; National Guard called in

Machinists’ strike in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Paterson, N.J., for union recognition, minimum wage, and a nine-hour day (1900-1901)

National Negro Business League created

International Ladies Garment Workers Union founded

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

Olds Motor Works begins large-scale production of automobiles in Detroit

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

Sisters of St. Francis (Roman Catholic) formed

Arden colony (Single Tax) founded in Delaware

Roycrofters colony (semi-communal, craft-oriented) founded in Erie County, New York

Southern Cooperative Association of Apalachicola (Swedenborgian) founded in Florida

Vedanta Movement forms first rural commune in California

1901

President William McKinley assassinated, V.P. Theodore Roosevelt assumes the office

President Theodore Roosevelt invites Booker T. Washington to dine with him at the White House, the first time a black American has done so; Roosevelt’s action meets a firestorm of criticism from white supremacists

Through Platt Amendment, Congress restricts Cuban independence and asserts US right to intervene as it wishes in Cuban affairs

Philippine nationalist leader Emilio Aguinaldo captured by US troops

Hay-Pouncefote Treaty

“Open Door” policy toward China advoated by United States

US sends troops to Samoa to assert US rights; Germany and US divide the islands into two “protectorates”

In the Insular Cases, Supreme Court rules that Puerto Rico is neither a foreign country nor a state and Congress may decide the status of its inhabitants, as citizens or “dependents” of the United States (1901-1904)

Last remaining African-American US Congressman, George H. White of North Carolina, gives up his seat; no black Congressman will serve for the next 28 years, and none from the South until the advent of the civil rights movement

Congress creates National Bureau of Standards

“Scientific Temperance” curriculum mandated in all states by this date

US Army War College founded at Washington, DC

Alabama and Virginia adopt disfranchisement legislation 

Streetcar boycotts undertaken by African-Americans in cities across the South, to protest segregation (1901-1906)

National Cash Register Co. strike in Dayton, OH, for union recognition; workers locked out

San Francisco restaurant workers strike over wages and for a six-day workweek

Major steelworkers’ strike against newly created US Steel Corp., seeking union recognition

Federación Libre de los Trabajadores is admitted to the American Federation of Labor, marking the first entry of Mexican-Americans to this major union

United Textile Workers founded

Rockefeller Institute for Medican Research founded in New York City

First College Board examinations are given

Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition

John Muir, Our National Parks

Frank Norris, The Octopus

Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery

J. P. Morgan creates U.S. Steel Corporation

Oil struck at Spindletop, Texas, beginning oil extraction in the state

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

Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo

American Standard Version of the Bible is published

Pentacostal movement begins at Charles Fox Parnahm’s Bible School, Topeka, KS

Brotherhood of Light movement (Spiritualist) founds colonies in Colorado

The Bridge, looking across the River from the Top of the Brooklyn Pier.
"The Last Cable Laid - Views of the new Brooklyn Bridge taken on the occasion of the completion of the first great stage of work, when on June 26 the last strand of the last cable was strung across the river", Haper's Weekly, July 1902, p.895.

1902

Congress extends Chinese exclusion for another decade; follows up in 1904 by making this indefinite

United States and Mexico are first nations to submit a dispute to the Hague Court of Arbitration for settlement, the first nations to do so

Newlands Recolmation Act allows public lands in arid West to be sold if irrigation is made available; creates Bureau of Reclamation

Crater Lake National Park created

Anthracite coal strike, PA, for eight-hour day, UMW recognition, minimum wage; strikers shot by company guards, precipitating violent clash in Shenandoah and calling of National Guard; houses are burned and strikebreakers stoned before President Theodore Roosevelt intervenes and pressures mine owners for settlement

Chicago teamsters’ strike versus packing houses over wages and working conditions; consumer boycott accompanies strike; three days of riots in Chicago against the “beef trust”

Henry James, The Wings of the Dove

William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

Helen Keller, The Story My Life

Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities

Ida Tarbell, History of the Standard Oil Company

Owen Wister, The Virginian

Photographer Alfred Stieglitz begins journal Camera Work

American Automobile Association founded

Inventor Willis Carrier patents an air conditioner

Inventor Arthur Little patents rayon

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

Rabbi Solomon Schechter assumes leadership of Jewish Theological Seminary, New York; develops ideas that will underlay Conservative Judaism

Zitkala-Sa, “Why I Am a Pagan,” Atlantic Monthly

Metropolitan Museum of Art founded in New York

Winslow Homer (American, 1836-1910)
Art Students and Copyists, Wood engraving
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York
Purchase, Louise Woodruff Johnston (class of 1922) Fund, 1974.22.1

1903

In Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock the Supreme Court provides wide latitude for federal government to confiscate tribal lands without due process

Violent pogroms in Russia stimulate immigration of Russian Jews seeking refuge in the United States

US facilitates Panamanian revolution against Colombia; under resulting Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, US pays Panama for indefinite lease on a six-mile strip of land on which to build an isthmaian canal (1903-1904)

Department of Commerce and Labor created at the Cabinet level in the federal executive branch

National Wildlife Refuge System created; Pelican Island, Florida, made nation’s first wildlife refuge

Wind Cave National Park created in South Dakota

Massachusetts becomes the first state to issue license plates for automobiles

Japanese and Mexican sugar beet workers in Oxnard, California, unite in strike over wage reductions; in gunfights, four members of the new Japanese Mexican Labor Association are shot

Copper miners strike in Clifton-Morenci, Arizona, led by Mexican miners, is put down by military force wielded by Phelps Dodge Co.

Hardrock mining strike in Cripple Creek, CO, in sympathy with a strike of refinery workers in Colorado City, over wages; armed battles are followed by military occupation of the district, burning and destruction of union halls in Cripple Creek area, and forcible expulsion of WFM miners from the district (1903-1904)

Hardrock mining strike in Telluride, CO, over wage cuts and eight-hour day; violence on both sides , National Guard called in, strike is forcibly ended amid mass arrests (1903-1904)

Italian, Finnish,and Slavic coal miners in Utah strike for union recognition; pitted against Utah Fuel Company with secret support of Mormon church; violence against strikers occurs, National Guard called in (1903-1904)

Women’s Trade Union League founded

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

New York publisher Joseph Pulitzer establishes Pulitzer Prizes

First commercial wireless broadcast station opens on Cape Cod 

Orville and Wilbur Wright succeed in first flight of an aircraft at Kitty Hawk, NC

William Harley designs and introduces the Harley-Davidson motorcycle

Ford Motor Company founded in Detroit

First World Series in baseball pits Boston Pilgrims (American League) against Pittburgh Pirates (National League); Pilgrims win, 5 games to 3

1904

Theodore Roosevelt, Republican, defeats Alton Parker, Democrat in the US presidential election; popular vote 7,628,461 to 5,084,223, electoral vote 292 to 155; minor candidates include Eugene V. Debs on the Socialist ticket and Silas C. Swallow on the Prohibition ticket

In Northern Securities case, the Supreme Court upholds Justice Department action to break up a monopoly operating “in restraint of trade”

Roosevelt Corollary

Maryland segregates railroad cars

Transit workers’ strike in New York City over wages and hours of work

Packinghouse workers strike in Midwestern cities for minimum wage; violence erupts and black strikebreakers area ttacked in Chicago, Kansas City, and St. Joseph, MO, and militia are called in to Sioux City, Iowa

National Child Labor Committee formed to oppose child labor

National Tuberculosis Association mobilizes national education and public health campaign

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

George M. Cohan, Little Johnny Jones, musical show which is the source of “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “Give My Regards to Broadway”

Lewis Hine begins his career photographing immigrants at Ellis Island

Thomas Edison introduces motion-pictures with sound

Edison and his Party on the Chain Bridge leaving Washington for Leesburg, Virginia; Mr. Edison is in the Centre; on his Right is his son Charles; on his Left, his two Laboratory Assistants.
"Edison's Quest and His Traveling Laboratory", Harper's Weekly, Jun. 1906, p.809.

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

Invention of the ice cream cone

1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis; includes first Olympic Games held in the Western Hemisphere

1905

Roosevelt implements “executive agreement” with Dominican Republic

Roosevelt helps mediate peace agreement to end Russo-Japanese War at Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Treaty of Portsmouth results

Roosevelt Administration and prime minister of Japan negotiate secret agreement, by which US relinquishes any claims in Japanese-controlled Korea and Japan does likewise for US-controlled Philippines

US Forest Service created

In Lochner v. New York the Supreme Court strikes down a state law setting maximum working hours for bakers, arguing that the law violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment

In Swift and Company the Supreme Court acknowledges some federal powers of regulation over manufacturers engaged in interstate trade

In Hale v. Hinkel the Supreme Court extends to corporations, as “persons,” the Fourth Amendment right against self-incrimination

Assassination of Frank Steunenberg, former governor of Idaho, in retaliation for suppression of Couer d’Alene strike; presumably carried out by members of WFM

International Workers of the World founded

African-American reformers and intellectuals, led by W.E.B. DuBois, meet in Ontario, Canada, and create the Niagara Movement for civil rights, culminating four years later in creation of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)

National Audubon Society founded

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

Thomas Dixon, The Clansman

Dorothy Richardson, The Long Day

Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

First “nickelodeon” movie theater opens in Pittsburgh

Second World Series in baseball pits New York Giants (National League) over Philadelphia Athletics (American League); Giants win, 4 games to 1