TIMELINE OF EVENTS
| 1859 | Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species |
| Henry Bessemer improves steel production process | |
| 1860–1890 | U.S. gross domestic product quadruples |
| 1866 | Transatlantic telegraph cable completed |
| 1868 | Typewriter invented |
| 1870–1900 | U.S. becomes a global industrial power |
| 1870–1910 | Number of U.S. white-collar workers triples |
| 1870s | John D. Rockefeller takes control of oil refining business |
| 1872 | Montgomery Ward established |
| 1876 | Thomas Edison establishes research laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey |
| 1881 | James Garfield assassinated |
| 1883 | Civil Service Act passed |
| 1884–1900 | 1,700 blacks lynched in the South |
| 1885 | Alexander Graham Bell founds American Telephone and Telegraph |
| 1886 | U.S. railroads adopt standard gauge |
| Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company | |
| 1889 | Andrew Carnegie publishes “The Gospel of Wealth” |
| 1890 | Sherman Antitrust Act passed |
| 1890s | African Americans disfranchised in the South |
| 1891 | Rural free delivery (RFD) begins |
| 1895 | United States v. E.C. Knight Company |
| 1896 | Plessy v. Ferguson |
| 1901 | United States Steel established |