History

US History II: 1877 to the Present

A cartoon satirizing the Chinese Exclusion Act (Library of Congress)

1. Industrial United States (1870–1900)

The rise of corporations, heavy industry, and mechanized farming transformed the American economy and way of life. Massive immigration created new social patterns and ideas of nationalism. Meanwhile, racist policies excluded Chinese emigrants from the country and partitioned the remaining Indian reservations.

Documents

• Rutherford B. Hayes: Inaugural Address (1877)
• National Quarantine Act (1878)
• Stephen J. Field's Opinion in Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan (1879)
• Thomas Edison: Patent Application for the Incandescent Light Bulb (1879)
• Report of the Special Committee on Railroads (1879)
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s "Early Forms of Liability" (1881)
• Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
• Civil Rights Cases (1883)
• Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883)
• John Marshall Harlan's Opinion Hurtado v. California (1884)
• Pittsburgh Platform (1885)
• Ely Parker's Letter to Harriet Maxwell Converse about Indian Policy Reform (1885)
• Grover Cleveland: First Inaugural Address (1885)
• T. Thomas Fortune: "The Present Relations of Labor and Capital" (1886)
• Anna Julia Cooper: "Womanhood: A Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race" (1886)
• Dawes Severalty Act (1887)
• Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
• Nellie Bly: Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887)
• John Edward Bruce: "Organized Resistance Is Our Best Remedy" (1889)
• Andrew Carnegie: “Wealth” (1889)
• Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
• Samuel Gompers's Address to Workers in Louisville, Kentucky (1890)
• Grover Cleveland: "Principles above Spoils" Letter (1890)
• Immigration Act of 1891 (1891)
• Jane Addams: "The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements" (1892)
• William Jennings Bryan: Speech to Congress on Tariff Reform (1892)
• Grover Cleveland: Special Session Message to Congress on the Economic Crisis (1893)
• “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893)
• Samuel Gompers's Editorial on the Pullman Strike (1894)
• William McKinley: "Benevolent Assimilation" Proclamation (1898)