| 1869 | Knights of Labor founded. Cincinnati mounts first paid baseball team. |
| 1871 | Boss Tweed's rule in New York ends. Chicago's Great Fire. |
| 1873 | Panic on Wall Street touches off depression. |
| 1877 | Great Railroad Strike. |
| 1880s | Immigration from southern and eastern Europe rises. |
| 1882 | Chinese Exclusion Act. |
| 1883 | Brooklyn Bridge opens. |
| 1886 | American Federation of Labor (AFL) founded. Haymarket bombing. |
| 1890s | African American migration from the South begins. |
| 1890 | Jacob Riis publishes How the Other Half Lives. |
| 1892 | Ellis Island opens. |
| 1893 | World's Columbian Exposition. Panic on Wall Street touches off major economic depression. |
| 1895 | Boston Public Library opens in Copley Square. |
| 1896 | President Grover Cleveland vetoes immigrant literacy test. |
| 1897 | Steeplechase Park opens on Coney Island. Nation's first subway system opens in Boston. |