TIMELINE OF EVENTS
| 1789 | Massachusetts institutes free public elementary education for all children |
| 1790 | Spinning mill designed and built by Samuel Slater opens |
| 1790–1820 | Cotton production in the South increases from 3,000 to 330,000 bales annually |
| U.S. slave population more than doubles from 700,000 to 1.5 million | |
| 1791–1803 | Free and enslaved blacks revolt against French rule in Saint Domingue |
| 1792–1809 | New capital of Washington City constructed |
| 1793 | Eli Whitney invents cotton gin |
| 1801 | Federalists pass new Judiciary Act |
| Jefferson sends U.S. force to challenge Barbary pirates | |
| 1803 | United States purchases Louisiana Territory from France |
| Haiti established as the first independent black-led nation in the Americas | |
| Marbury v. Madison | |
| 1804–1806 | Corps of Discovery explores Louisiana Territory |
| April 1805 | Sacagawea joins Corps of Discovery |
| 1807 | Robert Fulton launches first successful steamboat |
| Embargo Act passed | |
| 1810 | Population of both New York and Philadelphia exceeds 100,000 |
| 1816 | Parker Cleaveland publishes Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy and Geology |
| 1817 | American Colonization Society founded |
| 1819 | McCulloch v. Maryland |
| 1820 | One-quarter of non-Indian Americans live west of the Appalachian Mountains |
| Washington Irving publishes Sketchbook | |
| 1828 | Noah Webster publishes American Dictionary of the English Language |