TIMELINE

1881

  • President James Garfield assassinated

1883

  • Pendleton Act establishes the Civil Service Commission

1890

  • Sherman Antitrust Act

  • People’s Party created in Kansas

1893

  • Economic depression begins

1894

  • Coxey’s Army marches on Washington, D.C.

1895

  • John Pierpont Morgan arranges gold purchases to rescue U.S. Treasury

1896

  • William McKinley wins presidency

  • Plessy v. Ferguson establishes “separate but equal” doctrine

1898

  • Williams v. Mississippi allows poll taxes and literacy tests for voters

1899

  • National Consumers’ League founded

1901

  • Eugene Debs founds the Socialist Party of America

  • McKinley assassinated; Theodore Roosevelt assumes presidency

1902

  • Newlands Reclamation Act

1903

  • Elkins Act

1904

  • Robert Hunter publishes Poverty

1905

  • Industrial Workers of the World founded

  • Niagara Principles articulated

1906

  • Hepburn Act

1908

  • Muller v. Oregon limits women’s work hours

1909

  • NAACP created

1912

  • Four-way election gives presidency to Woodrow Wilson

1913

  • Sixteenth Amendment

  • Seventeenth Amendment

  • Federal Reserve Act

1914

  • Clayton Antitrust Act