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April 14, 1865

Ford's Theater

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On the evening of April 14, 1865, while attending a special performance of the comedy, "Our American Cousin," President Abraham Lincoln was shot. Accompanying him at Ford's Theatre that night were his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, a twenty-eight year-old officer named Major Henry R. Rathbone, and Rathbone's fiancée, Clara Harris. After the play was in progress, a figure with a drawn derringer pistol stepped into the presidential box, aimed, and fired. The president slumped forward.

The Martyr of liberty... [n. p., n. d.] (Library of Congress, Stern Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division.)

The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, dropped the pistol and waved a dagger. Rathbone lunged at him, and though slashed in the arm, forced the killer to the railing. Booth leapt from the balcony and caught the spur of his left boot on a flag draped over the rail, and broke a bone in his leg on landing. Though injured, he rushed out the back door, and disappeared into the night on horseback.

A doctor in the audience, Dr. Charles Leale, immediately went upstairs to the box. The bullet had entered through Lincoln's left ear and lodged behind his right eye. He was paralyzed and barely breathing. He was carried across Tenth Street, to a boarding-house opposite the theater, but the doctors' best efforts failed. Nine hours later, at 7:22 a.m. on April 15th, Lincoln died.

President Lincoln's funeral procession in New York City. From Harper's Weekly, May 13, 1865. (Library of Congress, Stern Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division. )

At almost the same moment Booth fired the fatal shot, his accomplice, Lewis Powell (alias Lewis Paine, Lewis Payne), attacked Lincoln's secretary of state, William Henry Seward, at his home on Lafayette Square. Seward lay in bed, recovering from a carriage accident. Powell entered the mansion, claiming to have a delivery of medicine from the secretary's doctor. Seward's son, Frederick, was brutally beaten while trying to keep Powell from his father's door. Powell slashed the secretary's throat twice, then fought his way past Seward's son Augustus, an attending hospital corps veteran, and a State Department messenger.

Powell escaped into the night, believing his deed complete. However, a metal surgical collar saved Seward from certain death. The secretary lived another seven years, during which he retained his seat with the Johnson administration, and purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867.

There were at least four conspirators in addition to Booth involved in the mayhem. Booth was shot and captured while hiding in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, and died later the same day, April 26, 1865. Four co-conspirators, Powell, George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Mary Surratt, were hanged at the gallows of the Old Penitentiary, on the site of present-day Fort McNair, on July 7, 1865.

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Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln | Articles and Essays | Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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On the evening of April 14, 1865, while attending a special performance of the comedy, "Our American Cousin," President Abraham Lincoln was shot. Accompanying him at Ford's Theatre that night were his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, a twenty-eight year-old officer named Major Henry R. Rathbone, and Rathbone's fiancée, Clara Harris.

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April 15, 1865

Washington D.C.

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With the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson became the 17th President of the United States (1865-1869), an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views.

With the Assassination of Lincoln, the Presidency fell upon an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views. Although an honest and honorable man, Andrew Johnson was one of the most unfortunate of Presidents. Arrayed against him were the Radical Republicans in Congress, brilliantly led and ruthless in their tactics. Johnson was no match for them.

Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1808, Johnson grew up in poverty. He was apprenticed to a tailor as a boy, but ran away. He opened a tailor shop in Greeneville, Tennessee, married Eliza McCardle, and participated in debates at the local academy.

Entering politics, he became an adept stump speaker, championing the common man and vilifying the plantation aristocracy. As a Member of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 1840's and '50's, he advocated a homestead bill to provide a free farm for the poor man.

During the secession crisis, Johnson remained in the Senate even when Tennessee seceded, which made him a hero in the North and a traitor in the eyes of most Southerners. In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor of Tennessee, and Johnson used the state as a laboratory for reconstruction. In 1864 the Republicans, contending that their National Union Party was for all loyal men, nominated Johnson, a Southerner and a Democrat, for Vice President.

After Lincoln's death, President Johnson proceeded to reconstruct the former Confederate States while Congress was not in session in 1865. He pardoned all who would take an oath of allegiance, but required leaders and men of wealth to obtain special Presidential pardons.

By the time Congress met in December 1865, most southern states were reconstructed, slavery was being abolished, but "black codes" to regulate the freedmen were beginning to appear.

Radical Republicans in Congress moved vigorously to change Johnson's program. They gained the support of northerners who were dismayed to see Southerners keeping many prewar leaders and imposing many prewar restrictions upon Negroes.

The Radicals' first step was to refuse to seat any Senator or Representative from the old Confederacy. Next they passed measures dealing with the former slaves. Johnson vetoed the legislation. The Radicals mustered enough votes in Congress to pass legislation over his veto-the first time that Congress had overridden a President on an important bill. They passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which established Negroes as American citizens and forbade discrimination against them.

A few months later Congress submitted to the states the Fourteenth Amendment, which specified that no state should "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

All the former Confederate States except Tennessee refused to ratify the amendment; further, there were two bloody race riots in the South. Speaking in the Middle West, Johnson faced hostile audiences. The Radical Republicans won an overwhelming victory in Congressional elections that fall.

In March 1867, the Radicals effected their own plan of Reconstruction, again placing southern states under military rule. They passed laws placing restrictions upon the President. When Johnson allegedly violated one of these, the Tenure of Office Act, by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the House voted eleven articles of impeachment against him. He was tried by the Senate in the spring of 1868 and acquitted by one vote.

In 1875, Tennessee returned Johnson to the Senate. He died a few months later.

Learn more about Andrew Johnson's spouse, Eliza McCardle Johnson.

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With the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson became the 17th President of the United States (1865-1869), an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views.

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December 24, 1865

Pulaski, Tenneesee

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The US congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1866 

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The US congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1866 

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Occurred April 9, 1866

Washington D.C.

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Civil Rights Act of 1866, “An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication” | Constitution Center

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National Constitution Center Historic Documents Library record for Civil Rights Act of 1866, “An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication”

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The US congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1866

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The US congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1866

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July 9, 1868

Philadelphia PA

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Passed by the Senate on June 8, 1866, and ratified two years later, on July 9, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with "equal protection under the laws," extending the provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states. The amendment authorized the government to punish states that abridged citizens' right to vote by proportionally reducing their representation in Congress. It banned those who "engaged in insurrection" against the United States from holding any civil, military, or elected office without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate. The amendment prohibited former Confederate states from repaying war debts and compensating former slave owners for the emancipation of their enslaved people. Finally, it granted Congress the power to enforce this amendment, a provision that led to the passage of other landmark legislation in the 20th century, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Congress required former Confederate states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition of regaining federal representation.

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Landmark Legislation: The Fourteenth Amendment

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September 1868

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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Marceau. Woman seated with Underwood typewriter. 1918. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division.

Modern computers allow a single individual to do amazing things. But before the computer, there was the typewriter.

There are a lot of people around now who may have never seen or used a typewriter. They don't know what it was like to fix typographical errors or remember to leave space for footnotes and page numbers. They haven't experienced the agony of having to retype an entire document or page just to insert a single word, sentence, or paragraph. They may not understand that designing, much less creating booklets and brochures, meant time spent with a printer - the business, not the machine! There were no fancy spreadsheet functions that tallied up numbers, much less turning those numbers into pie charts or graphs with a few clicks - there was just the tab key to keep the numbers in line and a calculator to add them all up.

In its day, the introduction of the typewriter into American businesses may have been just as transformative in its day as the introduction of the computer was just a few decades ago. This quote from the September 14, 1884 Salt Lake Herald shows how early typewriters proved their value:

Perhaps no invention of modern times has done so much to relieve business men of the great amount of pen-work drudgery to be done in every business, as the standard Remington type-writer. Thousands of these excellent machines are in daily use throughout the country, giving the utmost satisfaction claimed for them. An office boy, for instance, with but two month practice on one of these machines can accomplish more work than two rapid penmen; besides do it in a neater, and more attractive and legible manner. With but little more practice he can perform more than three men's work. Half a dozen copies may also be written at once as easily as one.

Business men are fully aware of the many advantages in these writers, and are very generally adopting them as veritable savers of time, money, and labor.

While the history of typewriter development can be traced as far back as the 16th century and Francesco Rampazzetto, it wasn't until the mid 19th century that the modern version took shape. There were many inventors who were looking at machines that could type, among them William Austin Burt ( patent 5,581X External ) and Alfred Ely Beach (patent number US15,164 External ), Agostino Fantoni, Pellegrino Turri, Charles Thurber, Giuseppe Ravizza, and Rev. Rasmus Malling-Hansen. In the U.S., one of the first commercially made typewriters was patented in 1868 ( US 79,265 External ) by Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel W. Soule (Sholes also had a separate patent in 1878 US 207,559 External ). The 1868 patent was sold to E. Remington & Sons (then known for manufacturing sewing machines) who began production on March 1, 1873 under the name Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer. This model eventually became the Remington Typewriter and it is this machine that popularized the QWERTY layout we are still using on our computer keyboards.

The early success of the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer led to competitor models, and by 1901 typewriters were being used in many places. A quote from a 1901 New York Tribune article called it "that almost sentient mechanism" and made it clear that the typewriter had already become an essential tool for many businesses. One of the most popular models was the Underwood No. 5 introduced at the turn of the century by the Underwood Typewriter Company. Millions of the No. 5 were manufactured and it spawned its own imitations from Royal and Oliver.

The importance and popularity of the No. 5 can be seen in its advertisements. Some of my favorites were those that included the results of typewriting competitions and those that included the names of companies that bought their product. Another favorite was an advertisement from 1915 that indicated the No. 5 had won First Grand Prize at the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915. During WWI their advertisements touted the typewriter's contribution to the war effort - one encouraged people to get involved using their typing skills, while another included the number of their typewriters used by the Allies. Production on the No. 5 ceased in 1932 with the advent of newer models featuring more sophisticated features. The company was sold in 1963 and eventually the Underwood name, along with the typewriter itself, slowly faded away, replaced by computers and software programs.

Today there are a many books on how to use particular software programs and the Internet has many videos offering users tips and tricks. While there were no videos, there were many how-to books on stenography and typing - I remember using one when I took typing in high school. There were manuals on different typing methods like Gregg, manuals for beginners and more advanced users, and manuals on increasing speeds and doing tabular typing. There was also guidance for the first year typing teacher as well as teaching typing at the elementary and college levels. Then there was a title like R. E. Tulloss' The New Way in Typewriting; A Course of Instruction in Typewriting Efficiency for the Development of Accuracy, High Speed, and Ease of Operation which illustrated special finger exercises. A number of the manuals also included some historical background, but were also used to promote individual products. In 1892 Remington wrote a lesson-style book followed by another in 1911. Underwood published Typewriter Bookkeeping, useful for those producing invoices and office financial records, while Royal published a title that was both a history and catalog.

The typewriter had become so important that people were already writing histories as early as 1908 when George Carl Mares wrote The History of the Typewriter: Being an Illustrated Account of the Origin, Rise and Development of the Writing Machine. On the 50th anniversary, the commemorative title The Story of the Typewriter 1873-1923 was published by the Herkimer County History Society in New York, expressing pride in a local citizen Christopher Sholes and the Sholes-Glidden company. Even the American branch of the Newcomen Society, which celebrated American business achievement, wrote a brief history in 1948. Later titles like Wonderful Writing Machine and Century of the Typewriter each added more to the history. While it is possible another history of the typewriter may be written, The Iron Whim, which declared typewriting dead in the first line of the introduction, may be one of the last.

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Research Guides: This Month in Business History: Production on the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer Began

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Compiled by specialists in Business Reference Services at the Library of Congress, this guide highlights stories about the people, places, and events that made their mark on business history.

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November 3, 1868

Occurred across the United State

Ulysses S. Grant is elected as president

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Research Guides: Presidential Election of 1868: A Resource Guide: Introduction

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Ulysses S. Grant defeated Horatio Seymour in the 1868 presidential election. This guide provides access to digital materials at the Library of Congress, links to external websites, and a print bibliography.

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Wyoming becomes first state to grant women suffrage

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Wyoming becomes first state to grant women suffrage

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December 1869

Wyoming

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Wyoming becomes first state to grant women suffrage

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Wyoming becomes first state to grant women suffrage

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The 15th Amendment is passed by congress

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The 15th Amendment is passed by congress

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February 26, 1859, ratified February 3, 1870

Passed in city of Washington

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Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote.
To former abolitionists and to the Radical Republicans in Congress who fashioned Reconstruction after the Civil War, the 15th Amendment, enacted in 1870, appeared to signify the fulfillment of all promises to African Americans. Set free by the 13th amendment, with citizenship guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, Black males were given the vote by the 15th Amendment. In retrospect, it can be seen that the 15th Amendment was in reality only another step in the struggle for equality that would continue for more than a century before African Americans could begin to participate fully in American public and civic life.

African Americans exercised the right to vote and held office in many Southern states through the 1880s, but in the early 1890s, steps were taken to ensure subsequent "white supremacy." Literacy tests for the vote, "grandfather clauses" excluding from the franchise all whose ancestors had not voted in the 1860s, and other devices to disenfranchise African Americans were written into the laws of former Confederate states.

Social and economic segregation were added to Black America's loss of political power. In 1896, the Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson legalized "separate but equal" facilities for the races. For more than 50 years, the overwhelming majority of African American citizens were reduced to second-class citizenship under the "Jim Crow" segregation system. During that time, African Americans sought to secure their rights and improve their position through organizations such as National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League and through the individual efforts of reformers like Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and A. Philip Randolph.

The most direct attack on the problem of African American disenfranchisement came in 1965. Prompted by reports of continuing discriminatory voting practices in many Southern states, President Lyndon B. Johnson, himself a southerner, urged Congress on March 15, 1965, to pass legislation "which will make it impossible to thwart the 15th Amendment." He reminded Congress that "we cannot have government for all the people until we first make certain it is government of and by all the people."

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, extended in 1970, 1975, and 1982, abolished all remaining deterrents to exercising the right to vote and authorized federal supervision of voter registration where necessary. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the act involving federal oversight of voting rules in nine states.

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15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Voting Rights (1870)

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EnlargeDownload Link Citation: The House Joint Resolution Proposing the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, December 7, 1868; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1999; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives View All Pages in the National Archives Catalog View Transcript Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote.

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The 15th Amendment is passed by congress

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The 15th Amendment is passed by congress

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October 8, 1871

Chicago Illinois

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Alumni and Retirees: Use your social media or email account. Emeriti, use “Employees/Students” above to log in.

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March 29, 1874

Washington D.C

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Minor v. Happersett | Constitution Center

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National Constitution Center Supreme Court Case Library: Minor v. Happersett

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March 1, 1875 in Massachusetts

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July 1, 1875

Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

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Written by: John Steele Gordon, Independent Historian

By the end of this section, you will:

Explain the effects of technological advances in the development of the United States over time

Explain the socioeconomic continuities and changes associated with the growth of industrial capitalism from 1865 to 1898

Explain the causes of increased economic opportunity and its effects on society

Early in 1901, J. P. Morgan, the country's most powerful banker, merged Andrew Carnegie's Carnegie Steel Corporation with nine other steel companies to form the world's largest corporation. The United States Steel Corporation, usually known as U.S. Steel or simply Big Steel, was capitalized at $1.4 billion. To get a sense of how big a sum that was at the turn of the twentieth century, consider that the federal government that year spent only $517 million. The creation of U.S. Steel was the culmination of an era of American industrial consolidation that made many fear such corporations were becoming too powerful, financially and politically, and thereby threatened American democracy.

Morgan and Carnegie could hardly have come from more different backgrounds. Morgan had been born rich in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1837, the son of international banker J. S. Morgan and the grandson of the founder of Aetna Insurance Company. He was well educated, having attended the English High School in Boston and then University of Göttingen in Germany. He was fluent in French and German. By the 1870s, Morgan was a partner in the Wall Street firm of Drexel, Morgan and Company and acted as the New York agent for his father's bank, which was headquartered in London. On his father's death, he formed J. P. Morgan and Company.

Andrew Carnegie had been born in 1835 in a one-room house in Dunfermline, Scotland, the son of a handloom weaver. But when the weaving of cloth was mechanized in the 1840s, the Carnegies became impoverished. Under the leadership of Carnegie's strong-willed mother, the family emigrated to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1848, when Andrew was 13 years old. With his formal education, such as it was, at an end, he found work as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill, earning $1.20 for laboring 12 hours a day, six days a week.

Andrew Carnegie, pictured here in his later years, lived a true rags-to-riches story by transforming himself from a poor Scottish immigrant into one of the country's wealthiest men.

In 1849, Carnegie went to work at the Ohio Telegraph Company, earning $2.00 a week as a messenger boy. He soon mastered telegraphy, learning to "read" messages by ear, and was promoted to operator. There he met Colonel James Anderson, who let working boys borrow books from his personal library, a privilege Carnegie used to the full. He resolved that if he ever became rich, he would give other working boys the same opportunity.

A tireless worker, Carnegie came to the attention of Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who hired him as his personal telegrapher at $4.00 a week. By 1859, when he was 24 years old, Carnegie was put in charge of the Western Division of the railroad and was earning $1,500 a year, a middle-class income. Mentored by Scott, who helped him start investing, often in insider deals, Carnegie was a rich man by the end of the Civil War. He invested in iron works and saw potential in the future of steel.

Carnegie was right. Before the 1850s, steel could be made only in small batches and was so expensive that it was limited to specialized applications like sword blades and precision tools, despite being much more versatile and stronger than wrought iron. Then in 1857, the English engineer Henry Bessemer developed a way to make steel in large quantities at a fraction of the old price. Steel quickly began to replace wrought iron in such things as railroad rails and structural beams.

In 1860, the United States had produced only 13,000 tons of steel. In 1880, it produced 1,467,000 tons. Twenty years later, it produced 11,227,000 tons, more than England and Germany combined. By that time, steel was the measure of a country's industrial might, and Carnegie was primarily responsible for American strength in steel production. He left the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad to devote himself full time to overseeing the production of iron and steel. But he was careful to maintain close relationships with Thomas Scott and J. Edgar Thomson, the railroad's president, and the railroad was soon his best customer. When Carnegie built his first steel mill, he named it after Thomson.

Carnegie's business philosophy was simple. He retained a large part of the profits earned in good times to tide him over and give him flexibility in bad times. He used those earnings to expand during depressions, when construction costs were low and competitors were forced to the wall and had to sell cheaply. Most importantly, he was open to constant technological and business innovation to reduce operating costs even by a little, because they had much more impact on profits than construction costs. The strategy was a great success. In addition, Carnegie Steel bought up its sources of raw materials and shipping (in a strategy called vertical integration) and bought out and absorbed its competitors (horizontal integration) to dominate the steel industry. By the 1890s, it was the largest and most profitable steel company in the world.

But Carnegie felt a keen sense of social responsibility, as recounted in an article he wrote called "The Gospel of Wealth." In it he argued that "the man who dies rich dies disgraced." As he approached his sixties, he wanted to spend less time making money and more time giving it away by dedicating himself to philanthropy.

Andrew Carnegie, depicted in this 1903 cartoon, believed that he and his fellow wealthy industrialists should use their surplus wealth to better society, rather than bequeathing it to their heirs.

The president of Carnegie Steel was Charles Schwab. In late 1900, a dinner in his honor was given in New York City and attended by many of the country's industrial and financial elite, including Morgan, who sat next to Schwab. A gifted public speaker, Schwab stood up after the dinner and extolled the strength and efficiency of the American steel industry. But, he argued, it could grow even larger and more powerful compared with its European rivals. A single company with the most efficient mills in the country could control the industry through economies of scale, advanced technology, and specialization. The resulting conglomerate, Schwab declared, would dominate the world's steel market.

Morgan had paid close attention to what Schwab said, and after the dinner, he took him aside to talk privately. Characteristically, Morgan decided to immediately pursue Schwab's vision. Both he and Schwab knew Carnegie's agreement was key to the deal.

Schwab went to see Carnegie at a cottage Carnegie maintained at St. Andrews Golf Course north of New York City, and over a game of golf, Carnegie agreed to sell U.S. Steel to Morgan for $492,000,000. When Carnegie shook hands with Morgan later, the latter said, "Congratulations on becoming the richest man in the world." Carnegie had come a long way from his first job as a bobbin boy making $1.20 a week.

Carnegie spent the last two decades of his life giving away 90 percent of his fortune. Beginning in 1880, he built more than 2,500 libraries in the United States, Canada, Britain, and elsewhere. The first, not surprisingly, was in his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland. By the time of his death in 1919, about half the public libraries in the United States had been built by Andrew Carnegie.

Carnegie libraries, like this one in Littleton, New Hampshire, were built to fulfill Andrew Carnegie's sense of social responsibility and provide access to education for generations to come.

Carnegie also established the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, which operates four museums in that city; the Carnegie Technical Schools, now part of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh; and Carnegie Hall for classical music performances in New York. His most generous gift, of $120 million, was given to establish the Carnegie Corporation of New York, one of the earliest and still one of the biggest philanthropic foundations in the United States.

Review Questions

Free Response Questions

1. Describe the business strategy Andrew Carnegie used to amass his great fortune.

2. Explain how Andrew Carnegie was able to transform the American steel industry.

AP Practice Questions

"Thus is the problem of rich and poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free, the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee of the poor, entrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself. The best minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of the race in which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows, save by using it year by year for the general good. This day already dawns. Men may die without incurring the pity of their fellows, still sharers in great business enterprises from which their capital cannot be or has not been withdrawn, and which is left chiefly at death for public uses; yet the day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free to him to administer during life, will pass away 'unwept, unhonored, and unsung,' no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.'"

Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth, 1889

Refer to the excerpt provided.

1. Andrew Carnegie's motivation for writing the excerpt was that he believed the rich

1. had a philanthropic responsibility to help those who were less privileged

2. had a right to maintain their fortunes, as long as they were earned honestly

3. needed to invest in business to create more jobs for Americans

4. should provide a minimum income for all Americans

2. Which of the following groups would support the concept of helping the poor as expressed in the excerpt?

1. The Populists

2. The National and American Women's Suffrage Association

3. The Bull Moose Party

4. Settlement house workers

3. Factors that allowed people like Andrew Carnegie to amass a large personal fortune in this era included the

1. profits made by a few individuals during the Civil War

2. Industrial Revolution's new technologies and processes

3. scandals that occurred during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant

4. profits made from land speculation during the period of Manifest Destiny

Primary Sources

Carnegie, Andrew. "Gospel of Wealth." North American Review 148 (June):653-665.

Carnegie, Andrew. "Carnegie Speaks: A Recording of 'The Gospel of Wealth." http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5766/

Carnegie, Andrew. "Wealth." June 1889. https://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/AIH19th/Carnegie.html

Suggested Resources

Brands, H.W. Masters of Enterprise: Giants of American Business from John Jacob Astor to Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey. New York: Free Press, 1999.

Chernow, Ron. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance, New York, Grove Press, 1990.

Livesay, Harold C. American Made: Men Who Shaped the American Economy. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980.

Livesay, Harold C. Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business. Boston: Little Brown, 1975.

Krass, Peter. Carnegie. New York: John Wylie and Sons, 2002.

Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Strouse, Jean. Morgan: American Financier. New York: Random House, 1999.

Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989.

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Andrew Carnegie and the Creation of U.S. Steel - Bill of Rights Institute

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By the end of this section, you will: Explain the effects of technological advances in the development of the United States over time Explain the socioeconomic continuities and changes associated with the growth of industrial capitalism from 1865 to 1898 Explain the causes of increased economic opportunity and its effects on society Early in 1901, J.

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May 4, 1876

Cincinnati, Ohio

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On May 4, Cincinnati took on its first NABBP opponent, the Great Western Base Ball Club of Cincinnati. That morning's Cincinnati Daily Enquirer announced that "[b]oth clubs will send forth the whole of their first nines, and a very interesting game may be expected." What level of interest there was is uncertain, but the Red Stockings proved dominant, besting their crosstown foes, 45-9.

Nearly a week later, they thumped the Kekionga club of Fort Wayne, Ind., 86-8. Not all the scores would resemble modern football scores - on June 15, the Red Stockings played a tightly contested match with New York's Mutual Base Ball Club, one of the east coast's best. The club from Cincinnati eked out a 4-2 victory.

In September, Cincinnati traveled to San Francisco for a handful of games, making them the first baseball club to play on both coasts of the United States. On Nov. 6, the Mutual club visited Cincinnati for the Red Stockings' final NABBP match of the year. It was not as close as their June tilt, but the result, again, was in the Red Stockings' favor, 17-8. That win capped a 57-0 record against NABBP opponents, and Wright's squad also gained seven additional wins for a total record of 64-0.

With the same lineup in place for 1870, the Cincinnati Red Stockings scheduled another tour against opponents throughout the eastern and central United States - though there was apparently a proposal to tour Europe. On June 14, with 24 wins in as many decisions, the Red Stockings visited the Capitoline Grounds, home of Brooklyn's Atlantic club. Before 20,000 fans, the clubs were knotted at five runs apiece after nine innings were played. Harry Wright declined the Atlantic club's offer to end the game, instead calling for extra innings. Cincinnati scored twice in the top of the 11th inning, but in the bottom half of the frame, the Atlantic club plated three, winning when George Zettlein drove in Bob Ferguson.

According to a telegraph sent after the game, this was the "finest game ever played. Our boys did nobly, but fortune was against us. Eleven innings played. Though beaten, not disgraced."

The next day, the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer devoted two columns to game coverage, including a box score and the play-by-play account. The newspaper described the game's drama like this:
The excitement was intense from beginning to last, the silence being so great at time that one could hear the suppressed breathing of the players, and the vast crowd at time - a study of the game will tell when - breaking out into the most tumultuous cheering ever heard on a ball ground. Nearly all our nine played splendidly, but they were beaten squarely and fairly, two or three not playing up to their high mark.
Cincinnati finished its 1870 tour with five more losses - including another to Brooklyn's Atlantic Club on Oct. 25 in Philadelphia - and a tie, but still with 67 wins.

In November 1870, with the cost of employing professional becoming burdensome, the Cincinnati club's board elected not to field a team for 1871. Harry Wright left for Boston, taking three teammates including his brother and the team's nickname to Massachusetts, to help start a new ballclub in the nascent National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP, also known simply as the National Association or NA). Other Cincinnati Red Stockings found homes with other clubs. The Wright brothers and ex-Cincinnati ballplayers Cal McVey and Charlie Gould led the Boston Red Stockings, along with pitcher Albert Spalding, in the new league in 1871. Falling short in the inaugural season, the Bostonians took four straight league championships (1872-1875) before the team became a part of the National League.

The Cincinnati Red Stockings made their mark as the first openly professional baseball club in 1869. Members of the team would go on to form a club that still plays ball today, the Atlanta Braves.

Baseball has changed in many ways over the years; some would argue it has developed for the better and others might posit differing opinions. While pay rates have ballooned since professional play began, the basics of baseball remain largely steadfast and civic pride for a club, as Cincinnati felt for its erstwhile Red Stockings, is as strong as it ever was.
Matt Rothenberg is a freelance writer from Ossining, N.Y.

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Pro baseball began in Cincinnati in 1869

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On May 4, Cincinnati took on its first NABBP opponent, the Great Western Base Ball Club of Cincinnati. That morning's Cincinnati Daily Enquirer announced that "[b]oth clubs will send forth the whole of their first nines, and a very interesting game may be expected."

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March 4, 1877

Washington D.C.

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As the 19th President of the United States (1877-1881), Rutherford B. Hayes oversaw the end of Reconstruction, began the efforts that led to civil service reform, and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War.

Beneficiary of the most fiercely disputed election in American history, Rutherford B. Hayes brought to the Executive Mansion dignity, honesty, and moderate reform.

To the delight of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Lucy Webb Hayes carried out her husband's orders to banish wines and liquors from the White House.

Born in Ohio in 1822, Hayes was educated at Kenyon College and Harvard Law School. After five years of law practice in Lower Sandusky, he moved to Cincinnati, where he flourished as a young Whig lawyer.

He fought in the Civil War, was wounded in action, and rose to the rank of brevet major general. While he was still in the Army, Cincinnati Republicans ran him for the House of Representatives. He accepted the nomination, but would not campaign, explaining, "an officer fit for duty who at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer... ought to be scalped."

Elected by a heavy majority, Hayes entered Congress in December 1865, troubled by the "Rebel influences ... ruling the White House." Between 1867 and 1876 he served three terms as Governor of Ohio.

Safe liberalism, party loyalty, and a good war record made Hayes an acceptable Republican candidate in 1876. He opposed Governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York.

Although a galaxy of famous Republican speakers, and even Mark Twain, stumped for Hayes, he expected the Democrats to win. When the first returns seemed to confirm this, Hayes went to bed, believing he had lost. But in New York, Republican National Chairman Zachariah Chandler, aware of a loophole, wired leaders to stand firm: "Hayes has 185 votes and is elected." The popular vote apparently was 4,300,000 for Tilden to 4,036,000 for Hayes. Hayes's election depended upon contested electoral votes in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida. If all the disputed electoral votes went to Hayes, he would win; a single one would elect Tilden.

Months of uncertainty followed. In January 1877 Congress established an Electoral Commission to decide the dispute. The commission, made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats, determined all the contests in favor of Hayes by eight to seven. The final electoral vote: 185 to 184.

Northern Republicans had been promising southern Democrats at least one Cabinet post, Federal patronage, subsidies for internal improvements, and withdrawal of troops from Louisiana and South Carolina.

Hayes insisted that his appointments must be made on merit, not political considerations. For his Cabinet he chose men of high caliber, but outraged many Republicans because one member was an ex-Confederate and another had bolted the party as a Liberal Republican in 1872.

Hayes pledged protection of the rights of Negroes in the South, but at the same time advocated the restoration of "wise, honest, and peaceful local self-government." This meant the withdrawal of troops. Hayes hoped such conciliatory policies would lead to the building of a "new Republican party" in the South, to which white businessmen and conservatives would rally.

Many of the leaders of the new South did indeed favor Republican economic policies and approved of Hayes's financial conservatism, but they faced annihilation at the polls if they were to join the party of Reconstruction. Hayes and his Republican successors were persistent in their efforts but could not win over the "solid South."

Hayes had announced in advance that he would serve only one term, and retired to Spiegel Grove, his home in Fremont, Ohio, in 1881. He died in 1893.

Learn more about Rutherford B. Hayes's spouse, Lucy Ware Webb Hayes.

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As the 19th President of the United States (1877-1881), Rutherford B. Hayes oversaw the end of Reconstruction, began the efforts that led to civil service reform, and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War.

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December 31, 1879

Menlo Park, NJ

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Edison Light Bulb, 1879

Thomas Edison used this carbon-filament bulb in the first public demonstration of his most famous invention-the light bulb, the first practical electric incandescent lamp. The light bulb creates light when electrical current passes through the metal filament wire, heating it to a high temperature until it glows. The hot filament is protected from air by a glass bulb that is filled with inert gas. The demonstration took place at Edison's Menlo Park, N.J., laboratory on New Year's Eve, 1879.

As the quintessential American inventor-hero, Edison personified the ideal of the hardworking self-made man. He received a record 1,093 patents and became a skilled entrepreneur. Though occasionally unsuccessful, Edison and his team developed many practical devices in his "invention factory," and fostered faith in technological progress.

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Edison Light Bulb, 1879 Thomas Edison used this carbon-filament bulb in the first public demonstration of his most famous invention-the light bulb, the first practical electric incandescent lamp. The light bulb creates light when electrical current passes through the metal filament wire, heating it to a high temperature until it glows.

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May 21, 1881

Washington D.C.

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Learn about Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross who led the organization for 23 years.

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1881

Washington D.C.

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The son of a Baptist preacher who had emigrated from northern Ireland, Chester A. Arthur was America's 21st President (1881-85), succeeding President James Garfield upon his assassination.

Dignified, tall, and handsome, with clean-shaven chin and side-whiskers, Chester A. Arthur "looked like a President."

The son of a Baptist preacher who had emigrated from northern Ireland, Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont, in 1829. He was graduated from Union College in 1848, taught school, was admitted to the bar, and practiced law in New York City. Early in the Civil War he served as Quartermaster General of the State of New York.

President Grant in 1871 appointed him Collector of the Port of New York. Arthur effectively marshalled the thousand Customs House employees under his supervision on behalf of Roscoe Conkling's Stalwart Republican machine.

Honorable in his personal life and his public career, Arthur nevertheless was a firm believer in the spoils system when it was coming under vehement attack from reformers. He insisted upon honest administration of the Customs House, but staffed it with more employees than it needed, retaining them for their merit as party workers rather than as Government officials.

In 1878 President Hayes, attempting to reform the Customs House, ousted Arthur. Conkling and his followers tried to win redress by fighting for the renomination of Grant at the 1880 Republican Convention. Failing, they reluctantly accepted the nomination of Arthur for the Vice Presidency.

During his brief tenure as Vice President, Arthur stood firmly beside Conkling in his patronage struggle against President Garfield. But when Arthur succeeded to the Presidency, he was eager to prove himself above machine politics.

Avoiding old political friends, he became a man of fashion in his garb and associates, and often was seen with the elite of Washington, New York, and Newport. To the indignation of the Stalwart Republicans, the onetime Collector of the Port of New York became, as President, a champion of civil service reform. Public pressure, heightened by the assassination of Garfield, forced an unwieldy Congress to heed the President.

In 1883 Congress passed the Pendleton Act, which established a bipartisan Civil Service Commission, forbade levying political assessments against officeholders, and provided for a "classified system" that made certain Government positions obtainable only through competitive written examinations. The system protected employees against removal for political reasons.

Acting independently of party dogma, Arthur also tried to lower tariff rates so the Government would not be embarrassed by annual surpluses of revenue. Congress raised about as many rates as it trimmed, but Arthur signed the Tariff Act of 1883. Aggrieved Westerners and Southerners looked to the Democratic Party for redress, and the tariff began to emerge as a major political issue between the two parties.

The Arthur Administration enacted the first general Federal immigration law. Arthur approved a measure in 1882 excluding paupers, criminals, and lunatics. Congress suspended Chinese immigration for ten years, later making the restriction permanent.

Arthur demonstrated as President that he was above factions within the Republican Party, if indeed not above the party itself. Perhaps in part his reason was the well-kept secret he had known since a year after he succeeded to the Presidency, that he was suffering from a fatal kidney disease. He kept himself in the running for the Presidential nomination in 1884 in order not to appear that he feared defeat, but was not renominated, and died in 1886. Publisher Alexander K. McClure recalled, "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted, and no one ever retired ... more generally respected."
The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from "The Presidents of the United States of America," by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association.
Learn more about Chester A. Arthur's spouse, Ellen Lewis Herndon Arthur.

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The son of a Baptist preacher who had emigrated from northern Ireland, Chester A. Arthur was America's 21st President (1881-85), succeeding President James Garfield upon his assassination. Dignified, tall, and handsome, with clean-shaven chin and side-whiskers, Chester A. Arthur "looked like a President."

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May 6th, 1882

Took place in the United States, particularly in California

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Transcript

An Act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese.

Whereas in the opinion of the Government of the United States the coming of Chinese laborers to this country endangers the good order of certain localities within the territory thereof: Therefore,

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the expiration of ninety days next after the passage of this act, and until the expiration of ten years next after the passage of this act, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States be, and the same is hereby, suspended; and during such suspension it shall not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to come, or having so come after the expiration of said ninety days to remain within the United States.

SEC. 2. That the master of any vessel who shall knowingly bring within the United States on such vessel, and land or permit to be landed, any Chinese laborer, from any foreign port or place, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars for each and every such Chinese laborer so brought, and maybe also imprisoned for a term not exceeding one year.

SEC. 3. That the two foregoing sections shall not apply to Chinese laborers who were in the United States on the seventeenth day of November, eighteen hundred and eighty, or who shall have come into the same before the expiration of ninety days next after the passage of this act, and who shall produce to such master before going on board such vessel, and shall produce to the collector of the port in the United States at which such vessel shall arrive, the evidence hereinafter in this act required of his being one of the laborers in this section mentioned; nor shall the two foregoing sections apply to the case of any master whose vessel, being bound to a port not within the United States, shall come within the jurisdiction of the United States by reason of being in distress or in stress of weather, or touching at any port of the United States on its voyage to any foreign port or place: Provided, That all Chinese laborers brought on such vessel shall depart with the vessel on leaving port.

SEC. 4. That for the purpose of properly identifying Chinese laborers who were in the United States on the seventeenth day of November eighteen hundred and eighty, or who shall have come into the same before the expiration of ninety days next after the passage of this act, and in order to furnish them with the proper evidence of their right to go from and come to the United States of their free will and accord, as provided by the treaty between the United States and China dated November seventeenth, eighteen hundred and eighty, the collector of customs of the district from which any such Chinese laborer shall depart from the United States shall, in person or by deputy, go on board each vessel having on board any such Chinese laborers and cleared or about to sail from his district for a foreign port, and on such vessel make a list of all such Chinese laborers, which shall be entered in registry-books to be kept for that purpose, in which shall be stated the name, age, occupation, last place of residence, physical marks of peculiarities, and all facts necessary for the identification of each of such Chinese laborers, which books shall be safely kept in the custom-house.; and every such Chinese laborer so departing from the United States shall be entitled to, and shall receive, free of any charge or cost upon application therefor, from the collector or his deputy, at the time such list is taken, a certificate, signed by the collector or his deputy and attested by his seal of office, in such form as the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe, which certificate shall contain a statement of the name, age, occupation, last place of residence, persona description, and facts of identification of the Chinese laborer to whom the certificate is issued, corresponding with the said list and registry in all particulars. In case any Chinese laborer after having received such certificate shall leave such vessel before her departure he shall deliver his certificate to the master of the vessel, and if such Chinese laborer shall fail to return to such vessel before her departure from port the certificate shall be delivered by the master to the collector of customs for cancellation. The certificate herein provided for shall entitle the Chinese laborer to whom the same is issued to return to and re-enter the United States upon producing and delivering the same to the collector of customs of the district at which such Chinese laborer shall seek to re-enter; and upon delivery of such certificate by such Chinese laborer to the collector of customs at the time of re-entry in the United States said collector shall cause the same to be filed in the custom-house anti duly canceled.

SEC. 5. That any Chinese laborer mentioned in section four of this act being in the United States, and desiring to depart from the United States by land, shall have the right to demand and receive, free of charge or cost, a certificate of identification similar to that provided for in section four of this act to be issued to such Chinese laborers as may desire to leave the United States by water; and it is hereby made the duty of the collector of customs of the district next adjoining the foreign country to which said Chinese laborer desires to go to issue such certificate, free of charge or cost, upon application by such Chinese laborer, and to enter the same upon registry-books to be kept by him for the purpose, as provided for in section four of this act.

SEC. 6. That in order to the faithful execution of articles one and two of the treaty in this act before mentioned, every Chinese person other than a laborer who may be entitled by said treaty and this act to come within the United States, and who shall be about to come to the United States, shall be identified as so entitled by the Chinese Government in each case, such identity to be evidenced by a certificate issued under the authority of said government, which certificate shall be in the English language or (if not in the English language) accompanied by a translation into English, stating such right to come, and which certificate shall state the name, title or official rank, if any, the age, height, and all physical peculiarities, former and present occupation or profession, and place of residence in China of the person to whom the certificate is issued and that such person is entitled, conformably to the treaty in this act mentioned to come within the United States. Such certificate shall be prima-facie evidence of the fact set forth therein, and shall be produced to the collector of customs, or his deputy, of the port in the district in the United States at which the person named therein shall arrive.

SEC.7. That any person who shall knowingly and falsely alter or substitute any name for the name written in such certificate or forge any such certificate, or knowingly utter any forged or fraudulent certificate, or falsely personate any person named in any such certificate, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor; and upon conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned in a penitentiary for a term of not more than five years.

SEC.8. That the master of any vessel arriving in the United States from any foreign port or place shall, at the same time he delivers a manifest of the cargo, and if there be no cargo, then at the time of making a report of the entry of the vessel pursuant to law, in addition to the other matter required to be reported, and before landing, or permitting to land, any Chinese passengers, deliver and report to the collector of customs of the district in which such vessels shall have arrived a separate list of all Chinese passengers taken on board his vessel at any foreign port or place, and all such passengers on board the vessel at that time. Such list shall show the names of such passengers (and if accredited officers of the Chinese Government traveling on the business of that government, or their servants, with a note of such facts), and the names and other particulars, as shown by their respective certificates; and such list shall be sworn to by the master in the manner required by law in relation to the manifest of the cargo. Any willful refusal or neglect of any such master to comply with the provisions of this section shall incur the same penalties and forfeiture as are provided for a refusal or neglect to report and deliver a manifest of the cargo.

SEC. 9. That before any Chinese passengers are landed from any such line vessel, the collector, or his deputy, shall proceed to examine such passenger, comparing the certificate with the list and with the passengers ; and no passenger shall be allowed to land in the United States from such vessel in violation of law.

SEC.10. That every vessel whose master shall knowingly violate any of the provisions of this act shall be deemed forfeited to the United States, and shall be liable to seizure and condemnation in any district of the United States into which such vessel may enter or in which she may be found.

SEC. 11. That any person who shall knowingly bring into or cause to be brought into the United States by land, or who shall knowingly aid or abet the same, or aid or abet the landing in the United States from any vessel of any Chinese person not lawfully entitled to enter the United States, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned for a term not exceeding one year.

SEC. 12. That no Chinese person shall be permitted to enter the United States by land without producing to the proper officer of customs the certificate in this act required of Chinese persons seeking to land from a vessel. And any Chinese person found unlawfully within the United States shall be caused to be removed therefrom to the country from whence he came, by direction of the President of the United States, and at the cost of the United States, after being brought before some justice, judge, or commissioner of a court of the United States and found to be one not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the United States.

SEC.13. That this act shall not apply to diplomatic and other officers of the Chinese Government traveling upon the business of that government, whose credentials shall be taken as equivalent to the certificate in this act mentioned, and shall exempt them and their body and house- hold servants from the provisions of this act as to other Chinese persons.

SEC. 14. That hereafter no State court or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship; and all laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed.

SEC.15. That the words "Chinese laborers", wherever used in this act shall be construed to mean both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining.

Approved, May 6, 1882.

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EnlargeDownload Link Citation: An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to the Chinese, May 6, 1882; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1996; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives View All Pages in the National Archives Catalog View Transcript The Chinese Exclusion Act was approved on May 6, 1882.

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May 24, 1883

New York, New York

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About the Bridge

The iconic Brooklyn Bridge connects Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights. Known for its stone arches, the Brooklyn Bridge supports six lanes of vehicles (no trucks) and a shared pedestrian and bicycle path. As of 2018, an average of over 116,000 vehicles, 30,000 pedestrians and 3,000 cyclists travel over the Brooklyn Bridge each day.

Bridge Facts

Total length of bridge and approaches: 6,016 feet

Main span: 1,595.5 feet

Clearance at center: 135 feet

History

The Brooklyn Bridge was designed by John A. Roebling. Construction began in 1869 and was completed in 1883. At the time, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world. The Brooklyn Bridge connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River.

Because of the elevation of the span above the East River and the relatively low-lying shores, the rest of the bridge, sloping down to ground level, extends quite far inland on both sides of the river.

Between 1944 and 1954, a comprehensive reconstruction took place. The inner and outer trusses were strengthened, new horizontal stays were installed between the four main cables, the railroad and trolley tracks were removed, the roadways were widened from two lanes to three lanes, and new approach ramps were constructed. Additional approach ramps to the FDR Drive were opened to traffic in 1969.

The Brooklyn Bridge was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1972. The bridge and multiple Manhattan and Brooklyn lots comprising the approaches were designated as NYC Landmarks in 1967. In recent decades, the structure has been refurbished to handle the traffic demands during its second century.

In September 2021, a two-way protected bike lane opened along the Brooklyn Bridge, repurposing one lane of vehicular traffic to accommodate the rise of cycling in NYC.

Current Projects

Rehabilitation of Towers and Approach Arches

During Contract 7, NYC DOT will improve the load carrying capacity of the arch blocks and strengthen the masonry towers while focusing on repairs of the historic brick and granite components. The contract began in September 2019 and will continue until 2023.

Project Scope:

Strengthen masonry towers

Rehabilitate arch blocks and foundations

Replace brick infill walls

Rehabilitate basement floors

Repoint and reset granite stones

Improve lighting at the towers

Impacts:

Occasional lane closures will take place to inspect and repair bridge components

The bridge promenade will be open at all times, although portions of the walkway may be narrowed at times

Limited vehicular lane and sidewalk closures

Construction Project Contact:

Please contact Anita Navalurkar, the Brooklyn Bridge Community Liaison, with questions about the Brooklyn Bridge Rehabilitation project at 347-647-0876 or brooklynbridgeoutreach@gmail.com.

Previous Contracts

Contract 5D (1998-2000): Brooklyn Bridge Emergency Re-Decking Contract, $37M

Contract 5 (2007-2009): Brooklyn Bridge Travelers Replacement, $45M

Contract 6 (2010-2017): Rehabilitation of Approaches and Ramp Super Structure, Painting of the Whole Bridge, $650M

Contract 6A (2017-2019): Rehabilitation of Stone Masonry Walls at Bridge Approaches and Ramps, Sandy Related, $18M

Upcoming Contracts

The Brooklyn Bridge is continuously maintained in a State of Good Repair through capital projects and routine, in-house repairs to improve its components as they withstand weather conditions and vehicular traffic.

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The iconic Brooklyn Bridge connects Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights. Known for its stone arches, the Brooklyn Bridge supports six lanes of vehicles (no trucks) and a shared pedestrian and bicycle path. As of 2018, an average of over 116,000 vehicles, 30,000 pedestrians and 3,000 cyclists travel over the Brooklyn Bridge each day.

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Interstate Commerce Commission is created by Congress

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Interstate Commerce Commission is created by Congress

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February 4, 1887

Washington, D.C.

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EnlargeDownload Link Citation: Act of February 4, 1887 (Interstate Commerce Act), Public Law 49-41, February 4, 1887; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-; General Records of the United States Government, 1778 - 1992; Record Group 11; National Archives. View All Pages in the National Arc…

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Interstate Commerce Commission is created by Congress

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Interstate Commerce Commission is created by Congress

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February 8, 1887

City of Washington

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Federal Indian policy during the period from 1870 to 1900 marked a departure from earlier policies that were dominated by removal, treaties, reservations, and war. The new policy focused specifically on breaking up reservations and tribal lands by granting land allotments to individual Native Americans and encouraging them to take up agriculture. It was reasoned that if a person adopted "White" clothing and ways, and was responsible for their own farm, they would gradually drop their "Indian-ness" and be assimilated into White American culture. Then it would no longer be necessary for the government to oversee Indian welfare in the paternalistic ways it had previously done, including providing meager annuities, with American Indians treated as dependents.

On February 8, 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act, named for its author, Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts. Also known as the General Allotment Act, the law authorized the President to break up reservation land, which was held in common by the members of a tribe, into small allotments to be parceled out to individuals. Thus, Native Americans registering on a tribal "roll" were granted allotments of reservation land. "To each head of a family, one-quarter of a section; To each single person over eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section; To each orphan child under eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section; and To each other single person under eighteen years now living, or who may be born prior to the date of the order of the President directing an allotment of the lands embraced in any reservation, one-sixteenth of a section."

Section 8 of the act specified groups that were to be exempt from the law. It stated that "the provisions of this act shall not extend to the territory occupied by the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Osage, Miamies and Peorias, and Sacs and Foxes, in the Indian Territory, nor to any of the reservations of the Seneca Nation of New York Indians in the State of New York, nor to that strip of territory in the State of Nebraska adjoining the Sioux Nation on the south."

Subsequent events, however, extended the act's provisions to these groups as well. In 1893, President Grover Cleveland appointed the Dawes Commission to negotiate with the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, who were known as the Five Civilized Tribes. As a result of these negotiations, several acts were passed that allotted a share of common property to members of the Five Civilized Tribes in exchange for abolishing their tribal governments and recognizing state and federal laws. In order to receive the allotted land, members were to enroll with the Office of Indian Affairs (later renamed the Bureau of Indian Affairs [BIA]). Once enrolled, the individual's name went on the "Dawes Rolls." This process assisted the BIA and the Secretary of the Interior in determining the eligibility of individual members for land distribution.

The purpose of the Dawes Act, and the subsequent acts that extended its initial provisions, was purportedly to protect American Indian property rights, particularly during the land rushes of the 1890s. But in many instances the results were vastly different. The land allotted to individuals included desert or near-desert lands unsuitable for farming. In addition, the techniques of self-sufficient farming were much different from their tribal way of life. Many did not want to take up agriculture, and those who did want to farm could not afford the tools, animals, seed, and other supplies necessary to get started.

There were also problems with inheritance. Often young children inherited allotments that they could not farm because they had been sent away to boarding schools. Multiple heirs also caused a problem; when several people inherited an allotment, the size of the holdings became too small for effective farming. Tribes were also often underpaid for the land allotments, and when individuals did not accept the government requirements, their allotments were sold to non-Native individuals, causing American Indian communities to lose vast acreage of their tribal lands.

Transcript
Forty-Ninth Congress of the United States of America;
At the Second Session,
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the sixth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and eight-six.
An Act to provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations, and to extend the protection of the laws of the United States and the Territories over the Indians, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in all cases where any tribe or band of Indians has been, or shall hereafter be, located upon any reservation created for their use, either by treaty stipulation or by virtue of an act of Congress or executive order setting apart the same for their use, the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized, whenever in his opinion any reservation or any part thereof of such Indians is advantageous for agricultural and grazing purposes, to cause said reservation, or any part thereof, to be surveyed, or resurveyed if necessary, and to allot the lands in said reservation in severalty to any Indian located thereon in quantities as follows:

To each head of a family, one-quarter of a section;
To each single person over eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section;
To each orphan child under eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section; and
To each other single person under eighteen years now living, or who may be born prior to the date of the order of the President directing an allotment of the lands embraced in any reservation, one-sixteenth of a section:

Provided, That in case there is not sufficient land in any of said reservations to allot lands to each individual of the classes above named in quantities as above provided, the lands embraced in such reservation or reservations shall be allotted to each individual of each of said classes pro rata in accordance with the provisions of this act: And provided further, That where the treaty or act of Congress setting apart such reservation provides the allotment of lands in severalty in quantities in excess of those herein provided, the President, in making allotments upon such reservation, shall allot the lands to each individual Indian belonging thereon in quantity as specified in such treaty or act: And provided further, That when the lands allotted are only valuable for grazing purposes, an additional allotment of such grazing lands, in quantities as above provided, shall be made to each individual.

Sec. 2. That all allotments set apart under the provisions of this act shall be selected by the Indians, heads of families selecting for their minor children, and the agents shall select for each orphan child, and in such manner as to embrace the improvements of the Indians making the selection. where the improvements of two or more Indians have been made on the same legal subdivision of land, unless they shall otherwise agree, a provisional line may be run dividing said lands between them, and the amount to which each is entitled shall be equalized in the assignment of the remainder of the land to which they are entitled under his act: Provided, That if any one entitled to an allotment shall fail to make a selection within four years after the President shall direct that allotments may be made on a particular reservation, the Secretary of the Interior may direct the agent of such tribe or band, if such there be, and if there be no agent, then a special agent appointed for that purpose, to make a selection for such Indian, which selection shall be allotted as in cases where selections are made by the Indians, and patents shall issue in like manner.

Sec. 3. That the allotments provided for in this act shall be made by special agents appointed by the President for such purpose, and the agents in charge of the respective reservations on which the allotments are directed to be made, under such rules and regulations as the Secretary of the Interior may from time to time prescribe, and shall be certified by such agents to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in duplicate, one copy to be retained in the Indian Office and the other to be transmitted to the Secretary of the Interior for his action, and to be deposited in the General Land Office.

Sec. 4. That where any Indian not residing upon a reservation, or for whose tribe no reservation has been provided by treaty, act of Congress, or executive order, shall make settlement upon any surveyed or unsurveyed lands of the United States not otherwise appropriated, he or she shall be entitled, upon application to the local land-office for the district in which the lands arc located, to have the same allotted to him or her, and to his or her children, in quantities and manner as provided in this act for Indians residing upon reservations; and when such settlement is made upon unsurveyed lands, the grant to such Indians shall be adjusted upon the survey of the lands so as to conform thereto; and patents shall be issued to them for such lands in the manner and with the restrictions as herein provided. And the fees to which the officers of such local land-office would have been entitled had such lands been entered under the general laws for the disposition of the public lands shall be paid to them, from any moneys in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated, upon a statement of an account in their behalf for such fees by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and a certification of such account to the Secretary of the Treasury by the Secretary of the Interior.

Sec. 5. That upon the approval of the allotments provided for in this act by the Secretary of the Interior, he shall cause patents to issue therefor in the name of the allottees, which patents shall be of the legal effect, and declare that the United States does and will hold the land thus allotted, for the period of twenty-five years, in trust for the sole use and benefit of the Indian to whom such allotment shall have been made, or, in case of his decease, of his heirs according to the laws of the State or Territory where such land is located, and that at the expiration of said period the United States will convey the same by patent to said Indian, or his heirs as aforesaid, in fee, discharged of said trust and free of all charge or incumbrance whatsoever: Provided, That the President of the United States may in any case in his discretion extend the period. And if any conveyance shall be made of the lands set apart and allotted as herein provided, or any contract made touching the same, before the expiration of the time above mentioned, such conveyance or contract shall be absolutely null and void: Provided, That the law of descent and partition in force in the State or Territory where such lands are situate shall apply thereto after patents therefor have been executed and delivered, except as herein otherwise provided; and the laws of the State of Kansas regulating the descent and partition of real estate shall, so far as practicable, apply to all lands in the Indian Territory which may be allotted in severalty under the provisions of this act: And provided further, That at any time after lands have been allotted to all the Indians of any tribe as herein provided, or sooner if in the opinion of the President it shall be for the best interests of said tribe, it shall be lawful for the Secretary of the Interior to negotiate with such Indian tribe for the purchase and release by said tribe, in conformity with the treaty or statute under which such reservation is held, of such portions of its reservation not allotted as such tribe shall, from time to time, consent to sell, on such terms and conditions as shall be considered just and equitable between the United States and said tribe of Indians, which purchase shall not be complete until ratified by Congress, and the form and manner of executing such release prescribed by Congress: Provided however, That all lands adapted to agriculture, with or without irrigation so sold or released to the United States by any Indian tribe shall be held by the United States for the sale purpose of securing homes to actual settlers and shall be disposed of by the United States to actual and bona fide settlers only tracts not exceding one hundred and sixty acres to any one person, on such terms as Congress shall prescribe, subject to grants which Congress may make in aid of education: And provided further, That no patents shall issue therefor except to the person so taking the same as and homestead, or his heirs, and after the expiration of five years occupancy thereof as such homestead; and any conveyance of said lands taken as a homestead, or any contract touching the same, or lieu thereon, created prior to the date of such patent, shall be null and void. And the sums agreed to be paid by the United States as purchase money for any portion of any such reservation shall be held in the Treasury of the United States for the sole use of the tribe or tribes Indians; to whom such reservations belonged; and the same, with interest thereon at three per cent per annum, shall be at all times subject to appropriation by Congress for the education and civilization of such tribe or tribes of Indians or the members thereof. The patents aforesaid shall be recorded in the General Land Office, and afterward delivered, free of charge, to the allottee entitled thereto. And if any religious society or other organization is now occupying any of the public lands to which this act is applicable, for religious or educational work among the Indians, the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized to confirm such occupation to such society or organization, in quantity not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres in any one tract, so long as the same shall be so occupied, on such terms as he shall deem just; but nothing herein contained shall change or alter any claim of such society for religious or educational purposes heretofore granted by law. And hereafter in the employment of Indian police, or any other employees in the public service among any of the Indian tribes or bands affected by this act, and where Indians can perform the duties required, those Indians who have availed themselves of the provisions of this act and become citizens of the United States shall be preferred.

Sec. 6. That upon the completion of said allotments and the patenting of the lands to said allottees, each and every member of the respective bands or tribes of Indians to whom allotments have been made shall have the benefit of and be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the State or Territory in which they may reside; and no Territory shall pass or enforce any law denying any such Indian within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. And every Indian born within the territorial limits of the United States to whom allotments shall have been made under the provisions of this act, or under any law or treaty, and every Indian born within the territorial limits of the United States who has voluntarily taken up, within said limits, his residence separate and apart from any tribe of Indians therein, and has adopted the habits of civilized life, is hereby declared to be a citizen of the United States, and is entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of such citizens, whether said Indian has been or not, by birth or otherwise, a member of any tribe of Indians within the territorial limits of the United States without in any manner affecting the right of any such Indian to tribal or other property.

Sec. 7. That in cases where the use of water for irrigation is necessary to render the lands within any Indian reservation available for agricultural purposes, the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized to prescribe such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary to secure a just and equal distribution thereof among the Indians residing upon any such reservation; and no other appropriation or grant of water by any riparian proprietor shall permitted to the damage of any other riparian proprietor.

Sec. 8. That the provisions of this act shall not extend to the territory occupied by the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Osage, Miamies and Peorias, and Sacs and Foxes, in the Indian Territory, nor to any of the reservations of the Seneca Nation of New York Indians in the State of New York, nor to that strip of territory in the State of Nebraska adjoining the Sioux Nation on the south added by executive order.

Sec. 9. That for the purpose of making the surveys and resurveys mentioned in section two of this act, there be, and hereby is, appropriated, out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, to be repaid proportionately out of the proceeds of the sales of such land as may be acquired from the Indians under the provisions of this act.

Sec. 10. That nothing in this act contained shall be so construed to affect the right and power of Congress to grant the right of way through any lands granted to an Indian, or a tribe of Indians, for railroads or other highways, or telegraph lines, for the public use, or condemn such lands to public uses, upon making just compensation.

Sec. 11. That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to prevent the removal of the Southern Ute Indians from their present reservation in Southwestern Colorado to a new reservation by and with consent of a majority of the adult male members of said tribe.

Approved, February, 8, 1887.

[Endorsements]

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EnlargeDownload Link Citation: An Act to Provide for the Allotment of Lands in Severalty to Indians on the Various Reservations (General Allotment Act or Dawes Act), Statutes at Large 24, 388-91, NADP Document A1887.

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May 31, 1889

Johnstown, Pennsylvania

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Johnstown Flood National Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)

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The South Fork Dam failed on Friday, May 31, 1889, and unleashed 20,000,000 tons of water that devastated Johnstown, PA. The flood killed 2,209 people but it brought the nation and the world together to aid the “Johnstown sufferers.” The story of the Johnstown Flood reminds us all, ”...that we must…

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July 2, 1890

City of Washington

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Approved July 2, 1890, The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was the first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices.

The Sherman Anti-trust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts. It was named for Senator John Sherman of Ohio, who was a chairman of the Senate finance committee and the Secretary of the Treasury under President Hayes.

Several states had passed similar laws, but they were limited to intrastate businesses. The Sherman Antitrust Act was based on the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. (For more background, see previous milestone documents: the Constitution, , and the Interstate Commerce Act.)

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed the Senate by a vote of 51-1 on April 8, 1890, and the House by a unanimous vote of 242-0 on June 20, 1890. President Benjamin Harrison signed the bill into law on July 2, 1890.

A trust is an arrangement by which stockholders in several companies transfer their shares to a single set of trustees. In exchange, the stockholders receive a certificate entitling them to a specified share of the consolidated earnings of the jointly managed companies.

Toward the end of the 19th century, trusts come to dominate a number of major industries, destroying competition. For example, on January 2, 1882, the Standard Oil Trust was formed. Attorney Samuel Dodd of Standard Oil first had the idea of a trust. A board of trustees was set up, and all the Standard properties were placed in its hands. Every stockholder received 20 trust certificates for each share of Standard Oil stock. All the profits of the component companies were sent to the nine trustees, who determined the dividends. The nine trustees elected the directors and officers of all the component companies. This allowed Standard Oil to function as a monopoly since the nine trustees ran all the component companies.

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act authorized the federal government to institute proceedings against trusts in order to dissolve them. Any combination "in the form of trust or otherwise that was in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states, or with foreign nations" was declared illegal. Persons forming such combinations were subject to fines of $5,000 and a year in jail. Individuals and companies suffering losses because of trusts were permitted to sue in federal court for triple damages.

The act was designed to restore competition, but it was loosely worded and failed to define such critical terms as "trust," "combination," "conspiracy," and "monopoly." Five years later, the Supreme Court dismantled the act in United States v. E. C. Knight Company (1895). The Court ruled that the American Sugar Refining Company, one of the defendants in the case, had not violated the law even though the company controlled about 98% of all sugar refining in the United States. The Supreme Court reasoned that the company's control of manufacture did not constitute a control of trade.

The E. C. Knight ruling seemed to end any government regulation of trusts. In spite of this, during President Theodore Roosevelt's "trust busting" campaigns at the turn of the century, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was used with considerable success. In 1904, the Supreme Court upheld the government's suit to dissolve the Northern Securities Company in Northern Securities Co. v. United States. By 1911, President Taft had used the act against the Standard Oil Company and the American Tobacco Company. In the late 1990s, in another effort to ensure a competitive free market system, the federal government used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, then over 100 years old, against the giant Microsoft computer software company.

Transcript
Fifty-first Congress of the United States of America, At the First Session,
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the second day of December, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine.
An act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or other- wise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, at the discretion of the court.

Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof; shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.

Sec. 3. Every contract, combination in form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce in any Territory of the United States or of the District of Columbia, or in restraint of trade or commerce between any such Territory and another, or between any such Territory or Territories and any State or States or the District of Columbia, or with foreign nations, or between the District of Columbia and any State or States or foreign nations, is hereby declared illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.

Sec. 4. The several circuit courts of the United States are hereby invested with jurisdiction to prevent and restrain violations of this act; and it shall be the duty of the several district attorneys of the United States, in their respective districts, under the direction of the Attorney-General, to institute proceedings in equity to prevent and restrain such violations. Such proceedings may be by way of petition setting forth the case and praying that such violation shall be enjoined or otherwise prohibited. When the parties complained of shall have been duly notified of such petition the court shall proceed, as soon as may be, to the hearing and determination of the case; and pending such petition and before final decree, the court may at any time make such temporary restraining order or prohibition as shall be deemed just in the premises.

Sec. 5. Whenever it shall appear to the court before which any proceeding under section four of this act may be pending, that the ends of justice require that other parties should be brought before the court, the court may cause them to be summoned, whether they reside in the district in which the court is held or not; and subpoenas to that end may be served in any district by the marshal thereof.

Sec. 6. Any property owned under any contract or by any combination, or pursuant to any conspiracy (and being the subject thereof) mentioned in section one of this act, and being in the course of transportation from one State to another, or to a foreign country, shall be- forfeited to the United States, and may be seized and condemned by like proceedings as those provided by law for the forfeiture, seizure, and condemnation of property imported into the United States contrary to law.

Sec. 7. Any person who shall be injured in his business or property by any other person or corporation by reason of anything forbidden or declared to be unlawful by this act, may sue therefor in any circuit court of the United States in the district in which the defendant resides or is found, without. respect to the amount in controversy, and shall recover three fold the damages by him sustained, and the costs of suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee.

Sec. 8. That the word "person," or " persons," wherever used in this act shall be deemed to include corporations and associations existing under or authorized by the laws of either the United States, the laws of any of the Territories, the laws of any State, or the laws of any foreign country.

Approved, July 2, 1890.

[Endorsements]

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EnlargeDownload Link Citation: Act of July 2, 1890(Sherman Anti-Trust Act), July 2, 1890; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives. View All Pages in the National Archives Catalog View Transcript Approved July 2, 1890, The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was the first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices.

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October 1, 1890

City of Washington

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On this date, the McKinley Tariff of 1890 became law-boosting protective tariff rates of nearly 50 percent on average for many American products. Ways and Means Committee Chairman William McKinley of Ohio led the effort in the House. The new legislation increased rates for many manufactured goods, while it placed items such as sugar and coffee on the free list. When Richard W. Townshend of Illinois, a stalwart Democratic opponent, delivered his customary protest against the measure on the House Floor, Republicans jeered him. Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed of Maine dryly explained, "It is not the speech we complain of so much as the monotony of the thing; we want a change." The House passed the bill 164 to 142 and it slowly worked its way through the Senate. President Benjamin Harrison convinced Senate allies to insert a provision permitting the President to raise duties to match foreign rate hikes and to sign agreements to open foreign markets without congressional approval. McKinley unsuccessfully opposed the reciprocity provision on the grounds that it yielded closely-held congressional powers. Many voters, perceiving the McKinley Tariff as a boon to wealthy industrialists, registered their displeasure at the polls that fall. House Republicans lost 93 seats and Democrats swung comfortably into a commanding majority.

Related Highlight Subjects

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The McKinley Tariff of 1890 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

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On this date, the McKinley Tariff of 1890 became law-boosting protective tariff rates of nearly 50 percent on average for many American products. Ways and Means Committee Chairman William McKinley of Ohio led the effort in the House. The new legislation increased rates for many manufactured goods, while it placed items such as sugar and coffee on the free list.

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June 30- July 6, 1892

Homestead, Pennsylvania

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The Strike at Homestead Mill | American Experience | PBS

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The bitter conflict in 1892 at his steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania revealed Andrew Carnegie’s conflicting beliefs regarding the rights of labor.

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April 15, 1892

Schenectady, NY

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G.E.’s History of Innovation (Published 2017)

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Originally called Edison General Electric, the company mirrored the growth of industrial America from the steam age to the age of electricity and beyond.

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May 3, 1893

United States

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Less than four years after Washington Territory achieved statehood, what was known as America's "Gilded Age" came to an agonizing end when the nation was struck by the worst economic crisis it had yet experienced. In the late spring of that year a four-month spasm of financial hysteria known as the Panic of 1893 swept the country. During the depression that followed, banks and businesses failed by the thousands, railroads went bankrupt, credit essentially froze, unemployment soared, and tens of thousands of ordinary people lost their homes and savings. In the Northwest the galloping optimism of the previous few years suddenly gave way to widespread despair. The economic catastrophe lasted several years, and its reach, severity, and duration would not be exceeded until the Great Depression of the 1930s. Every part of Washington state was hard hit, nowhere more than in its ambitious young cities.
The Boom Before the Bust
Washington became a state on November 11, 1889, and it was booming. In the preceding 10 years the population grew from 75,116 to nearly 350,000, and in 1890 the federal census bureau took note:

"The growth of Washington has been phenomenal, the population in 1890 being nearly five times that of 1880 ... [T]his growth has been almost entirely during the last five years of the decade. The inducements which have attracted settlers are in the main its fertile soil and ample rainfall, which enable farming to be carried on without irrigation over almost the entire state" ("1890 Census").

Besides farming, the state's economy was dominated by resource extraction, and thousands of newcomers came to the Northwest to man logging operations, mills, and mines. Many settled in and near the state's three largest cities. By 1890 Seattle had almost 43,000 residents, up from 3,553 in 1880; Tacoma had 36,000, more than 35 times its 1880 count; and Spokane, which had only 356 residents in 1880, had more than 19,000 a decade later.

Optimism ruled, and even disasters were taken largely in stride. In the summer of 1889 Seattle and Spokane (then called Spokane Falls) saw their predominantly wooden commercial centers burned to ash. Elegant new buildings of brick, granite, and stone, symbolic of two young cities on the make, quickly replaced the ruins. Spokane, linked to the East by both the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern railroads, was the undisputed economic and transportation center of the Inland Empire, its economy dominated by mining, wheat, and timber. Seattle thrived on timber, coal, and farm products, much of it shipped south from a thriving waterfront. The economy of its main rival, Tacoma, was similarly based, but since 1883 had been bolstered by a transcontinental rail link (something Seattle wouldn't get until a decade later). From wharves on Commencement Bay the region's products were exported to as far away as Asia. Seattle boosters called their city "the boomingest place on the earth," and British author Rudyard Kipling described Tacoma in 1889 as "literally staggering under a boom of the boomiest" (Kipling, 43).
Causes and Effects
Booms are not endless, and optimism and despair are equally contagious. As one economic historian put it, "Bull markets feed on an illusion of endless expansion, unstoppable by any human agency; panics are marked by fears of bottomless decline, which none seem able to arrest" (Sobel, Panic on Wall Street ..., 429).

Some historians point to the 1890 Sherman Silver Purchase Act as the primary cause of the Panic of 1893 and what followed. The act required the federal government to buy 4.5 million ounces of silver every month at market prices, purchased with a new issue of treasury notes and minted into dollar coins, both of which could be redeemed for gold from the U.S. Treasury. Regardless of market prices, the treasury was required by law to value gold at 16 times that of silver, i.e. 16 silver dollars could be exchanged for one gold dollar.

Silver production increased dramatically as new mines opened to meet the government quota. As supplies increased, mined silver's price on the open market plummeted, but the U.S. Treasury was required to maintain the 16-1 ratio when redeeming the silver coins and notes for gold. Gresham's Law -- "bad money drives out good" -- kicked in. Gold began to flow out of the treasury in worrying amounts, and America's financial integrity was seen as dependent on maintaining an adequate supply of gold to meet its obligations.

The open-market price of silver continued to decline, and mining it became barely profitable. Many mines closed, throwing men out of work, and those who remained were forced to accept severe pay cuts. The new silver coinage also increased the nation's circulating money supply, which fed inflation -- a blessing for borrowers but a bane for banks. Debtors who regularly relied on credit -- mostly farmers and certain businesses -- could repay loans with dollars that had less purchasing power than the ones they had earlier borrowed. This displeased lenders, and credit began to tighten.

Others blamed the Panic of 1893 on more sudden and shocking events. The bankruptcy of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad on February 20, 1893, rattled investors and the public. For decades railroads had been laying tracks that were "not needed, through miles and miles of uninhabited wilderness merely to insure that another road would not claim the territory first" (Carlson). Financed by massive debt, railroads that failed often dragged their creditors down too, which had contributed to major recessions in both 1873 and 1883. Fear breeds panic, and there was fear that history was repeating itself. It was, in spades.

Fear drove investors both here and abroad to liquidate their investments in American stocks, bonds, and other securities, then redeem the proceeds for gold from the treasury. On April 2, 1893, the treasury announced that the value of the gold it held had fallen below the $100 million it was required to maintain.

As the crisis deepened, economic activity slowed across the board, unemployment rose, and increasing numbers of bank loans, large and small, went into default. People in cities and towns around the nation stormed the banks to withdraw their savings. Many banks, having loaned out more than was prudent, could not meet the demands. There was no federal deposit insurance in the 1890s. When a bank closed its doors, depositors lost some or all of their life savings.

The crisis squarely hit the stock market for the first time on May 3, 1893, when a massive sell-off sent share prices tumbling across the board. The following day the National Cordage Company, a near-monopoly of American rope makers and a stock-market favorite, went into receivership. The day after that the market crashed even more drastically, and the Panic of 1893 was fully on. It would last from May to August of 1893, and the ensuing depression would last several years. One financial periodical of the day noted:

"Never before has there been such a sudden and striking cessation of industrial activity. Nor was any sector of the county exempt from the paralysis; mills, factories, furnaces, mines nearly everywhere shut down in large numbers ... and hundreds of thousands of men [were] thrown out of employment" ("Railroad Gross Earnings ...").

Scarce Data
In the 1890s there were no state or federal agencies compiling accurate tallies of the unemployed. There was no welfare system or other established programs to help those who had lost everything, and the work of private charities often went unnoted. National banks were but lightly regulated, Washington's state-chartered banks even less so, and private banks not at all.

In the absence of official data, local newspapers of the day provide the most detail on the struggles of businesses, banks, and people. Winnowing that out from hundreds of reels of microfilm is a tedious, eye-tiring task that very few have taken on. But one did -- Bruce A. Ramsey, a former Seattle newspaperman whose 2018 book, The Panic of 1893: The Untold Story of Washington State's First Depression, is an indispensable source from which many of the details that follow were taken.
Failing Banks
Banks are a good place to start, because that's where the money was, or was supposed to be. The first bank in the Washington state to close its doors in 1893 was the Bank of Puyallup, which went under on May 25, three weeks after the New York Stock Exchange crash. Within a month 10 more banks failed, including four in Spokane Falls (three on June 6 alone), two in New Whatcom (now Bellingham), and one each in Tacoma, Palouse, Ellensburg, and Everett. The failure of each bank caused direct misery to many and had wide-ranging ripple effects.

From late June to late July another 13 banks shut their doors, including two more in Spokane, two in Tacoma, and one each in Port Angeles, Sumas, Everett, Anacortes, and Hoquiam. The last Washington bank to fail in 1893, and the first in Seattle to go down, was the Security Savings Bank, which closed its doors on December 9, 1893. In total, 32 Washington banks failed in little more than seven months, and the carnage was not nearly over.

There were 17 bank failures in 1894, five of which had closed earlier, reopened, and failed again. The following year was worse, with 18 failed banks, three for the second time. In 1896 the rate slowed, but 13 more banks were added to the toll, including two that went under twice. In 1897 the worst of the crisis had passed; only six banks failed that year.

To summarize, from May 1893 to June 1897 there were 86 bank failures in Washington, including repeat failures, only 18 of which were organized, voluntary liquidations. The others simply closed their doors, most often when depositors demanded to withdraw more than the banks had on hand. The closures spread across the map -- 17 of the 32 counties then existing in the state had at least one, and several had many more. Of the 14 banks that tried to reopen, 13 failed again. Only one, a small bank in Conconully, Okanogan County, closed, reopened, and survived.
East of the Cascades
Once started, a panic is not easily stopped. Hardest hit in Eastern Washington were Spokane and Whitman counties, with a total of 21 banks shutting down. Not all were caused by the negligence, recklessness, or criminality of the bankers, although there was plenty of that. Other factors that fed the prolonged depression that followed were equally impervious to intervention. In Eastern Washington, one factor was the plunging value of silver. Two others were wheat prices and weather. And for the third decade in a row, overbuilt and debt-ridden railroads played a large role.
Silver
When Democrat Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) was elected U.S. president in November 1892 it was widely assumed that the Sherman Silver Purchase Act would be repealed to protect the nation's gold reserves. The repeal would not come until nearly a year later, but silver prices plunged still further in anticipation. Mines closed across the nation, including Eastern Washington, throwing miners out of work. Branch railroads serving the mines also failed, adding to the ranks of the unemployed. Several banks in Eastern Washington to which mines or railroads or both were indebted were put at risk, and as nervous depositors began demanding to withdraw their funds the pace of bank failures accelerated.
Wheat and Weather
Wheat was Eastern Washington's leading cash crop, key to the economies of several counties. In 1892 its price fell by 20 cents, to 57 cents a bushel, and the harvest was sparse. Farmers had difficulty servicing their debt; banks were loathe to lend any more than the bare minimum needed to produce the next year's crop. By 1893 the price of wheat had fallen to 40 cents a bushel, but the crop appeared to be one of the best ever, and farmers hoped to make up for low prices by exporting high volumes.

Then, early in the fall harvest season, the rains came. Fifty percent of the crop was destroyed, either before it was harvested or while awaiting shipment. Much of what was left was damaged and good only for animal feed. Loans went unpaid, some heavily mortgaged farms were lost, and banks faltered and closed throughout the wheat-growing region.
Railroads
By early 1893 Spokane had connections to four transcontinental railroads and was on the main line of both the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern. Fevered railroad construction had employed legions of men in parts of Eastern Washington, but by the early 1890s, the railroads had essentially stopped new construction and cut back on maintenance. Uncounted numbers of men were thrown out of work. Despite the cutbacks, on August 15, 1893, the Northern Pacific Railway went bankrupt, and two months later the Union Pacific (which ran a spur line to Spokane from the south) did the same. Bankruptcy receivers had little choice but to shed even more employees and cut wages, adding to the region's woes.

The Great Northern, built by James J. Hill (1838-1916), was better run and survived, although Hill claimed it was necessary to cut his workers' wages as well. In Spokane this prompted a strike, which failed. The economic meltdown, which was ruining banks in the state by the dozens, businesses by the hundreds, and individuals by the thousands, left labor with little bargaining power.
The Spokane Experience
Although Spokane lost most of its commercial district in the fire of August 1889, by the summer of 1893 about 40 parcels of downtown real estate were occupied by expensive new buildings. Almost all had been mortgaged to finance construction, and all but seven would be lost to foreclosure during the panic and the depression that followed.

There were nine bank failures in the city of Spokane (including second failures) and more than 60 percent of municipal funds was inaccessible, held by banks that had suspended operations. Hundreds of families and individuals lost much or all of their savings, and a large but indeterminate number of homes were foreclosed. The assessed market value of all the property in the city was halved between 1892 and 1894; revenue from property tax fell proportionately, further hamstringing the municipal budget. Unemployment soared; as early as January 1894 more than 1,200 idled workers applied for 350 jobs improving the city's waterworks.

Many of the rich fared no better. One of Spokane's early pioneers, Anthony M. Cannon (1839-1895), opened the town's first bank in 1879, and after the 1889 fire built an extravagant black-marble edifice to house his Bank of Spokane Falls. He also was heavily invested in a few sketchy schemes around the state and was mortgaged to the hilt and beyond. His bank was the third in the state to fail, on June 6, 1893. Within 24 hours, two other Spokane banks that were financially entwined with Cannon shut their doors, and a run by depositors forced the closure of a third, Citizens National (which, unlike most, eventually made its depositors whole). Cannon lost everything and died two years later, nearly penniless, in far-off New York.

Another prominent citizen, James N. Glover (1837-1921), known as the "Father of Spokane," built an opulent 12,000-square-foot mansion in 1888. In July 1893 he lost much of his fortune when the city's First National Bank, of which he was president, failed. The mortgage on his mansion was foreclosed, and Glover was forced to sell it two years later to satisfy his debts.

On both sides of the Cascades, the boomier the town, the further it had to fall. As the leading city in Eastern Washington, Spokane's troubles were writ large, but in kind and effect they were not unique. Whitman County, Spokane County's southern neighbor, with barely half the population, suffered eight bank failures. To the west, on the eastern shoulder of the Cascades, Kittitas County, with fewer than 9,000 people, had three banks fail, and its most prominent citizen, pioneer Walter Alvadore Bull (1838-1898), lost almost everything. There was misery aplenty to go around, and it left few untouched.
West of the Cascades
While Spokane was the unchallenged center of commerce for Eastern Washington, the situation west of the Cascades was more complex. From the 1880s through the early 1890s, Tacoma and Seattle competed to become the leading city on Puget Sound. To the north, New Whatcom (Bellingham), Port Townsend, Anacortes, and Everett had their own ambitions.

The story of Seattle's experience during the panic and the hard years that followed has been told elsewhere, as has the sad saga of the jobless troops of Coxey's Army and their futile march to the nation's capital. Tacoma fell so far, so fast, and in so many ways that only a few brief lowlights are possible here.

As was true everywhere, a hallmark of the panic and depression west of the Cascades was bank failures, which along with rampant unemployment caused the greatest harm to ordinary people. From Whatcom County in the north to Lewis County in the south, 60 banking institutions in Western Washington failed between May 25, 1893, and June 29, 1897. Both the first to go down and the last were in Pierce County, and with a total of 17 failures, including 14 of Tacoma's 21 banks, it led the state.

Following close behind was Whatcom County on the Canadian border, with 13 bank failures, most of them in New Whatcom and Fairhaven (both now part of Bellingham). Heavily dependent on logging, the area's economy was staggered when building and railroad construction ground to a near halt nationwide. New Whatcom ran out of money in 1893 while building a grand new city hall, leaving all but the first floor unfinished. Four clocks on the building's tower had only dials; the town could not afford mechanisms, so the hands were set permanently at seven o'clock.

Chehalis County (now Grays Harbor County), also heavily dependent on logging, saw five banks fail, Snohomish County lost four, and Lewis County three. Of the 19 counties in Western Washington, only five lost no banks -- Wahkiakum, Cowlitz, Clark, and Skamania, all in the far southwest, and San Juan in the north. Even tiny Island County, with a population of less than 1,800, lost one. Ballard, then an independent town adjacent to Seattle, also lost one, as did Slaughter (now Auburn). King County, the most populous in the state, did not fare as badly as some, with only 10 bank closures, including just one in the dismal year 1893.
Local Effects
Failing banks were not the only measure: Centralia in Lewis County lost only one bank (although it failed twice). Fueled by thriving logging and wood-products industries, the town's population had swelled to about 5,000 by 1891. Before 1893 was over it had fallen to 1,200, and at one point an entire city block was bought for $10. Similar demographic catastrophes were happening throughout Western Washington.

In Snohomish County, a group of investors that included John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) established the Everett Land Company in late 1890, and by the spring of 1891 work was underway on a nail factory, a barge works, a paper mill, a smelter, and the surveying, clearing, and platting of the land that would become Everett. Like Centralia, Everett saw astonishing growth, and by spring of 1892 had 5,600 residents, hundreds of frame houses, and schools, churches, theaters, streetcar service, electricity, streetlights, and telephone lines. In 1893 a railroad to the Monte Cristo mines was completed to carry ore to Everett's smelter.

Then it hit. On June 13, 1893, the Bank of Everett shut its doors, never to reopen. Three weeks later the Puget Sound National Bank went down, reopened, and eventually failed again. Everett's factories began to go dark, wages declined by 60 percent, and people started to abandon the town in droves. By 1895 Rockefeller had started to pull his money out. With little economic activity to generate fees, the city was nearly bankrupted, and the streetlights were turned off.
One City's Near-Death Experience

On the eastern shore of Jefferson County's Quimper Peninsula, Port Townsend was suffering even before the Panic of 1893 delivered what very nearly was a coup de grace. Since the 1870s its citizens had bet their future on obtaining a connection to a transcontinental rail line, and time and time again they were disappointed.

In 1889 the city received an offer, with conditions, from the Union Pacific to make Port Townsend the northern terminus of its transcontinental line. The conditions (including a payment of $100,000) were met, and the city looked forward to the great days sure to come. Optimistic investors went rather wild. With barely 4,500 residents, Port Townsend's downtown real-estate transactions in 1890 totaled nearly $4.6 million. By the end of that year there were six banks, six dry-goods stores, six hardware stores, 10 hotels, 28 real estate offices, three streetcar lines, and an impressive new city hall.

In November 1890 a Union Pacific subsidiary that was supposed to be laying the rails from the south was put in receivership, having done almost nothing to advance the railroad (a failure that also brought the Skagit County boomtown of Anacortes to its knees.) Less than two years later, already mortally wounded, commerce in Port Townsend was brought to a near stop by the Panic of 1893. Property values plummeted; by 1895 the late-Victorian office buildings that lined downtown streets, once worth as much as $25,000, were sold for mere hundreds of dollars, only to stand largely vacant for decades. Streetcar lines were torn up and the city's boosters fell silent.

Between 1890 and 1900 nearly one-quarter of Port Townsend's population left, and it would be 1928 before a measure of deliverance came with the opening of a large paper mill. The city never became the metropolis that its citizens hoped it would, but it persevered and would weather the Great Depression better than the larger cities that had left it behind nearly 40 years before.
Recovery
For well more than four years most cities and towns in Washington were at best marooned in economic doldrums, and a few struggled for mere survival. Unlike the sudden spasm of 1893 that triggered the depression, recovery was usually a process of incremental improvement, and some places fared better than others.

For a lucky few, the return to good times, when it came, was swift. In July 1897 Seattle and King County were launched on what would be more than a decade of prosperity when the steamship Portland arrived from Alaska with more than a ton of gold from the Klondike Gold Rush. In Eastern Washington, among other signs of recovery, mining activity increased and wheat prices rebounded. There was a bumper crop in 1896, allowing some farmers to pay off their mortgages, which in turn strengthened the balance sheets of the few surviving banks.

Most other places, Port Townsend being one, eventually rebounded, but never attained anything near their pre-panic ambitions. A few weren't so fortunate. South Bend in Pacific County had hoped to become the "Baltimore of the West," and in the early 1890s its population hit 3,500. Despite having a railroad connection, South Bend failed badly. It now styles itself the "Oyster Capital of the World," but in 2018 its population was still less half the 1890s peak.

Tacoma, damaged so deeply by the depression in so many different ways, had perhaps the most difficult time recovering. It was unable to straighten out its municipal finances until mid 1900, and would never again seriously compete with Seattle for regional dominance.

It is difficult to claim that many lessons were learned. When it comes to economic crises, history does tend to repeat itself. In the late 1920s, the Great Depression hit the world, and would become a worse and more protracted ordeal. While economists and historians again disagree on the causes, several widely accepted factors were repetitions of those that triggered the Panic of 1893.

Sources:

Bruce A. Ramsey, The Panic of 1893: The Untold Story of Washington State's First Depression (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Press, 2018); N. W. Durham, History of the City of Spokane and Spokane Country, Washington (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1912) 449-450; J. Franklin Pierce, "The Panic of 1893," Columbia Magazine, Vol. 7, no. 4 (Winter 1993-1994), pp. 39-44; John Fahey, "The Million-Dollar Corner: The Development of Downtown Spokane, 1890-1920," The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Vol. 62, no. 2 (April 1971), pp. 77-85; Robert Sobel, The Entrepreneurs: Explorations Within the American Business Tradition (Washington, D.C.: Beard Books, 2000), 136; Robert Sobel, Panic on Wall Street: A History of America's Financial Disasters (Washington, D.C.: Beard Books, 2000), 427-430; Caroline Denyer Gallacci, The City of Destiny and the South Sound: An Illustrated History of Tacoma and Pierce County (Carlsbad, CA: Heritage Media Corp., 2001); Charles Hoffman, "The Depression of the Nineties," The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 16, no. 2 (June 1956), p. 138; David O. Whitten, "Depression of 1893," August 14, 2001, EH.Net Encyclopedia website accessed August 31, 2019 (https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-depression-of-1893); Robert McNamara, "Financial Panics of the 19th Century," July 3, 2019, ThoughtCo website accessed September 14, 2019 (https://www.thoughtco.com/ /financial-panics-of-the-19th-century-1774020); "Panic of 1893," Saylor Academy website accessed September 1, 2019 (https://resources.saylor.org/wwwresources/archived/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/HIST312-10.1.2-Panic-of-1893.pdf); Mark Carlson, "Causes of Bank Suspensions in the Panic of 1893," Explorations in Economic History, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 56-80; John Steele Gordon, "The Other Great Depression," American Heritage Magazine, Vol. 42, No. 3 (May-June 1991); "Railroad Gross Earnings in August," The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, Vol. 57, No. 2 (September 1893), p. 446; Nancy Arlene Driscol Engle, "Benefiting a City: Women, Respectability and Reform in Spokane, Washington, 1886-1910 (Ph.D diss., University of Florida, 2003) 20-23; "Historic Homes: The Glover Mansion," Nostalgia Magazine website accessed September 8, 2019 (http://www.nostalgiamagazine.net/2018/04/24/historic-homes-the-glover-mansion/); Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches: Letters of Travel, Vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913), 43; HistoryLink Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, "1880 Census: Tenth Decennial Census" (by John Caldbick), and "1890 Census: Eleventh Decennial Census" (by John Caldbick), "Turning Point 7: A Bumpy Ride: Seattle's Economic Booms, Busts, and Comebacks" (by Walt Crowley and the HistoryLink.org Staff), "Panic of 1893: Seattle's First Great Depression" (By J. Kingston Pierce), "Northwestern Industrial Army marches to join Coxey's Army on April 25, 1894" (by David Wilma); "Port Townsend -- Thumbnail History (by John Caldbick); "Spokane -- Thumbnail History" (by Laura Arksey), "Seattle -- Thumbnail History" (by Walt Crowley), "Tacoma -- Thumbnail History" (by David Wilma and Walt Crowley), "South Bend -- Thumbnail History (by Jennifer Ott), "Bellingham -- Thumbnail History (by Emily Lieb), "Anacortes -- Thumbnail History (by Phil Carter), "Everett -- Thumbnail History (by Margaret Riddle), "Port Angeles -- Thumbnail History" (by Kit Oldham) https://www.historylink.org/ (accessed August 31-September 5, 2019).

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Less than four years after Washington Territory achieved statehood, what was known as America's "Gilded Age" came to an agonizing end when the nation was struck by the worst economic crisis it had ye

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May 11, 1894-July 20 1894

Pullman Chicago, ended up spreading around U.S.

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National Guard troops at the Hotel Florence in 1894.
Illinois Department of Natural Resources

NATIONWIDE BOYCOTT

"I believe a rich plunderer like Pullman is a greater felon than a poor thief, and it has become no small part of the duty of this organization to strip the mask of hypocrisy from the pretended philanthropist and show him to the world as an oppressor of labor...The paternalism of the Pullman is the same as the interest of a slaveholder in his human chattels. You are striking to avert slavery and degradation." Eugene V. Debs, President of ARU, speech of May 16, 1894

The American Railway Union (ARU) had formed in June 1893 in Chicago, with membership open to all white railroad employees of any profession. While other unions, such as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, focused on specific professions, the ARU embraced all related professions, even coal miners, longshoremen, and car-builders, if they were in the employ of a railroad. Pullman Company employees were eligible since the company owned and operated a few miles of railroad to access its factories. The structure of the union was one that encouraged democracy and settlement of grievances by mediation, recognizing that strikes were best avoided as they were destructive for both employers and employees. Under the leadership of President Eugene V. Debs, the union won some early victories and ranks swelled to 150,000 members.

Pullman workers, who had formed a grievance committee to negotiate with the company, were getting nowhere, and, though ARU leadership advised against it, a strike broke out at the Pullman factories on May 11,1894. The timing was unfortunate, since the company could afford to withstand a work stoppage financially by relying on existing leases. Against the might of the Pullman Company, the cause of the workers seemed hopeless. The Pullman Company continued to resist any concessions in negotiations with the strikers, trying to wait them out. So the ARU decided to take a truly injurious action against the Pullman Company on a national scale: a boycott of the handling of Pullman cars by all ARU workers.

Because Pullman cars were in such wide use, the boycott crippled rail traffic nationwide. Workers across the country had also seen wage reductions and had cause to take action. The size and scope of the ARU was threatening to railroads. In response, the General Managers' Association, an industry group representing 24 railroads with terminals in Chicago, organized measures against the boycott. Those who walked off the job were replaced with strikebreakers, and the association tried to sway public opinion against the boycott through methods such as encouraging railroad managers to hitch Pullman cars to mail cars to disrupt delivery.

It was through disruption of the United States mail that the federal government was given an opening for intervention into the boycott and strike. The government was uncomfortable with the labor actions in general, part of a growing apprehension about the laboring classes by those in the propertied class during a period of economic hardship. An injunction against the boycott was secured on the grounds of the violent nature of the strike and the threat to interstate commerce, citing the Sherman Anti-Trust Law of 1890, which ironically had been adopted to combat monopoly by big business.

Going over the head of Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld, thousands of U.S. Marshals and U.S. Army troops were deployed in what seemed an outsized response to the disturbance. In Chicago, mob activity increased with the military presence, with members from Pullman, but many more from other South Side neighborhoods. Back in Pullman, the Pullman Company strikers' plight had been overshadowed on the national stage by the boycott. Fighting between the military and workers at rail yards in the Chicago area left dozens dead and more wounded. The injunction led to the jailing of key leaders, weakening the ARU and the strike.

With the government working to the General Managers' Association's ends, Debs felt the only way to force the Pullman Company into arbitration was reaching out to other labor groups to join in a general strike, but his efforts did not succeed. The boycott dissolved in mid-July, and the ARU was defeated. For refusal to obey the injunction, Debs and others in the ARU were indicted for contempt. In late July, President Grover Cleveland appointed a commission to investigate the strike and boycott.

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The Strike of 1894 - Pullman National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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"I believe a rich plunderer like Pullman is a greater felon than a poor thief, and it has become no small part of the duty of this organization to strip the mask of hypocrisy from the pretended philanthropist and show him to the world as an oppressor of labor...The paternalism of the Pullman is the same as the interest of a slaveholder in his human chattels.

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July 7th, 1898

Hawaii Islands

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America's annexation of Hawaii in 1898 extended U.S. territory into the Pacific and highlighted resulted from economic integration and the rise of the United States as a Pacific power. For most of the 1800s, leaders in Washington were concerned that Hawaii might become part of a European nation's empire. During the 1830s, Britain and France forced Hawaii to accept treaties giving them economic privileges. In 1842, Secretary of State Daniel Webster sent a letter to Hawaiian agents in Washington affirming U.S. interests in Hawaii and opposing annexation by any other nation. He also proposed to Great Britain and France that no nation should seek special privileges or engage in further colonization of the islands. In 1849, the United States and Hawaii concluded a treaty of friendship that served as the basis of official relations between the parties.

A key provisioning spot for American whaling ships, fertile ground for American protestant missionaries, and a new source of sugar cane production, Hawaii's economy became increasingly integrated with the United States. An 1875 trade reciprocity treaty further linked the two countries and U.S. sugar plantation owners from the United States came to dominate the economy and politics of the islands. When Queen Liliuokalani moved to establish a stronger monarchy, Americans under the leadership of Samuel Dole deposed her in 1893. The planters' belief that a coup and annexation by the United States would remove the threat of a devastating tariff on their sugar also spurred them to action. The administration of President Benjamin Harrison encouraged the takeover, and dispatched sailors from the USS Boston to the islands to surround the royal palace. The U.S. minister to Hawaii, John L. Stevens, worked closely with the new government.

Dole sent a delegation to Washington in 1894 seeking annexation, but the new President, Grover Cleveland, opposed annexation and tried to restore the Queen. Dole declared Hawaii an independent republic. Spurred by the nationalism aroused by the Spanish-American War, the United States annexed Hawaii in 1898 at the urging of President William McKinley. Hawaii was made a territory in 1900, and Dole became its first governor. Racial attitudes and party politics in the United States deferred statehood until a bipartisan compromise linked Hawaii's status to Alaska, and both became states in 1959.

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America's annexation of Hawaii in 1898 extended U.S. territory into the Pacific and highlighted resulted from economic integration and the rise of the United States as a Pacific power. For most of the 1800s, leaders in Washington were concerned that Hawaii might become part of a European nation's empire.