Lewis W. Hine (American, 1874-1940)
Ellis Island Italian Madonna, 1903/1905, Gelatin silver print
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York
Gift of Alverta Van Dusen Lewis, class of 1938, in memory of her husband C. McKenzie Lewis, Jr., 1998.9.2

1865

Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery in the United States, is passed by Congress and ratified

In Ex Parte Milligan the Supreme Court rules that civilians may not be tried in military courts and circumscribes the jurisdiction of such courts

Southern state governments pass harsh Black Codes that restrict black rights, prompting Northern Republican response (1865-1866)

1866

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals founded

1867

Patrons of Husbandry (The Grange) founded in Washington, DC

1868

John Muir settles in Yosemite Valley

1869

Congress passes the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing US citizens the right to vote irrespective of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Ratified 1870.

Women gain full suffrage in Wyoming Territory

Women’s suffrage movement splits; American Woman Suffrage Association and National Woman Suffrage Association created

Prohibition Party founded in Chicago

The Prohibition Movement. - The Drug Store of the Future.
Puck, Sept. 1882, p.48.

1870

Women gain full suffrage in Utah Territory

In the “KKK Act,” Congress authorizes federal force against those who violate civil and political rights of citizens; resulting use of armed force quells Klan violence in the South and forces the Klan underground (1870-1871)

1872

First Lonngley Community (communist cooperative) formed in Dallas County, Missouri

1873

In Slaughterhouse cases, Supreme Court undermines Fourteenth Amendment protections of US citizens’ rights

1874

Woman’s Christian Temperance Union founded in Cleveland, Ohio

Social Freedom colony founded in Chesterfield County, Virginia

1875

Congress passes second Civil Rights Act forbidding racial discrimination in public transportation, hotels, and entertainment venues

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children founded

1877

American Humane Association founded

New York Farmers’ Alliance created in Rochester; Knights of Reliance, later the Farmers’ Alliance, founded in Lampasas County, Texas

1879

Henry George, Progress and Poverty

1880

Farmers’ Alliance founded in Cook Couinty, Illinois; becomes the basis for National Farmers Alliance

Charles Loring Brace, The Dangerous Classes of New York

1881

American Red Cross founded

Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor

Tennessee segregates railroad cars

1883

Congresses passes Pendleton Act, establishing Civil Service Commission and designating some federal offices as meri-based.

Sara Winnemucca, Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims

In Ex Parte Crow Dog Supreme Court rules that state and federal courts have no jurisdiction over Indian lands

US Supreme Court strikes down Civil Rights Act of 1875


Blind to His Own Interests.
Puck, Feb. 1883, p.410.

1884

Ladies’ Health Protective Association formed in New York to combat pollution and poor urban sanitation

1885

George Washington Cable, The Silent South

Laurence Gronlund, The Cooperative Commonwealth

Albert Kimsey Owen, Integral Cooperation

Kaweah Colony (Socialist) founded in California

Topolobampo Colony founded in Sinaloa, Mexico

1886

First settlement house in United States established in New York

Nehalem Valley Cooperative Colony founded in Oregon

US v. Kagama

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

1887

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

Florida segregates railroad cars

Puget Sound Cooperative Colony (Socialist) founded in Washington

1888

National Colored Farmers’ Alliance and Cooperative Union founded

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

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000-1887

Columbia Cooperative Colony founded in Oregon

Mississippi segregates railroad cars


Anti-Poverty Radiator. Cold, Bitter Cold!
Puck, Jan. 1888, p.337.

1889

Hull House settlement founded in Chicago

General Federation of Women’s Clubs founded

Farmers’ Incorporated Cooperative Society founded in Rockwell, Iowa

Texas segregates railroad cars

1890

Afro-American League formed in Chicago

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives

AWSA and NWSA merge to form NAWSA

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

Louisiana segregates railroad cars

1891

National Women’s Alliance founded

Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Georgia segregate railroad cars

1892

Sierra Club founded in California with leadership of John Muir

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

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “The Solitude of Self”

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

First national People’s Party convention in Omaha, Nebraska

1893

Women gain full suffrage in Colorado

Livingston Street Settlement founded in New York City

Cooperative Brotherhood of Winters Island (Socialist) founded in California

Hiawatha Colony (Socialist) founded in Michigan

1894

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

Alianza Hispano Americana founded in Tucson, Arizona

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

Home Employment Cooperative Colony founded in Missouri

William Hope Harvey, Coin’s Financial School

William Dean Howells, A Traveler from Altruria

Henry Demorest Lloyd, Wealth Against Commonwealth

Altruria Colony (Christian Socialist) formed in California

Colorado Cooperative Colony (Single-Tax) formed in Colorado

1895

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

South Carolina adopts disfranchisement legislation

Salvation Army denounces lynching

Fairhope colony (Single-Tax) formed in Alabama

1896

National Association of Colored Women founded

First meeting of American Negro Academy in Chicago

Atlanta University holds first Conference on Negro Problems

Home Colony (Anarchist) founded in Washington

1897

National Congress of Mothers founded

1898

National Afro-American Council created

National Consumers’ League founded

Anti-Imperialist League founded

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

South Carolina segregates railroad cars

Louisiana adopts disfranchisement legislation

Burley Cooperative Commonwealth (socialist) founded in Washington

1899

Harmony Colony (Populist/Socialist) founded in Washington

Niksur Cooperative Association (Socialist) founded in Minnesota

Straight Edge Industrial Settlement founded in New York City

North Carolina segregates railroad cars

1900

Arden colony (Single Tax) founded in Delaware

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

North Carolina adopts disfranchisement legislation

Virginia segregates railroad cars

1901

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

Alabama and Virginia adopt disfranchisement legislation

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

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

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

1902

Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities

Ida Tarbell, History of the Standard Oil Company

1903

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

1904

National Child Labor Committee formed to oppose child labor

National Tuberculosis Association mobilizes national education and public health campaign

Maryland segregates railroad cars

Robert Hunter, Poverty

1905

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

Dorothy Richardson, The Long Day