| •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 |
| •1881 | James Garfield assassinated |
| •1883 | Civil Service Act |
| •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 |
| •1890s | African Americans disfranchised in the South |
| •1895 | United States v. E.C. Knight Company |
| •1896 | Plessy v. Ferguson |
| •1901 | United States Steel established |