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1890-1899 |
Political and
Social History |
Literature |
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1890 |
Sherman Anti-Trust Law
Yosemite Park created by Act of Congress
1889-90 Jane Addams sets up Hull House, the
first of many settlement houses to aid the poor
29 December. Two hundred Sioux are killed by
soldiers at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
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Emily
Dickinson, Poems
Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes
Jacob Riis,
How the Other Half Lives
James, The Tragic Muse
Sarah Orne Jewett,
Tales of New England
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1891 |
First international copyright law
900,000 acres of Indian land in Oklahoma
opened to white settlers.
Populist Party is formed in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Thomas Edison patents a motion picture camera,
the "kinetoscope," which is capable of showing movies to one person at a
time.
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Death of
Melville (b. 1819) in obscurity in New York.
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, A New England Nun and Other Stories
Rose Terry Cooke, Huckleberries Gathered from New England Hills
Howells, Criticism and Fiction
Dickinson, Poems: Second Series
Hamlin Garland,Main-Travelled Roads
Mary N. Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country
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1892 |
July. Homestead (Pennsylvania) steelworkers
strike; after the strikers battle with Pinkerton detectives, Governor
Pattison calls in the militia. The strikers call off their strike in
November.
April-July. Strike by workers in silver mines
in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
Democrat and former president Grover Cleveland
is elected over opponent Benjamin Harrison, with Populist candidate James B.
Weaver coming in as a strong third.
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Death of
Whitman (b. 1819)
Frances E. W. Harper, Iola Leroy, the most popular work by an
African-American woman writer of the 19th century.
Death of
Rose Terry Cooke (b. 1827)
Mary Hallock Foote, The Chosen Valley
William Dean Howells, The Quality of Mercy
Grace King,
Tales of a Time and Place
Joel
Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus and His Friends
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1893 |
Financial panic of 1893
In Hawaii, Queen Liliuokalani's government is
overthrown; Hawaii becomes a U. S. protectorate despite President
Cleveland's opposition.
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October. World's Columbian Exhibition opens in Chicago and is nicknamed the
"White City" for its lights and architecture. Most of its buildings are
destroyed by fire in January 1894.
Ida B. Wells publishes
"The Reason Why the
Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition."
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Henry James, The Real Thing and Other Tales
Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Crane publishes
this edition at his own expense under the pseudonym Johnston Smith.
Alice French (Octave Thanet), Stories of a
Western Town
Henry Blake Fuller, The Cliff-Dwellers
McClure's Magazine (New York),
1893-1929, which will become famous for publishing "muckraking" articles
from c.1901-12, reformist exposes such as Ida Tarbell's "The History of the
Standard Oil Company," Lincoln Steffens's "The Shame of Minneapolis," and
Ray Stannard Baker's "The Right to Work." S. S. McClure's My
Autobiography (1914) was written by Willa Cather.
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1894 |
Coxey's Army, a group of unemployed men,
marches on Washington. A related group, Kelley's Army, sets out from the
West Coast; one of them is Jack London.
A tailors' strike in New York City brings
attention to sweat shops.
11 May -3 August. In Chicago, after the
Pullman Palace Car company reduces wages, workers strike; a general sympathy
strike ensues on 26 June. Despite protests by Illinois Governor John P.
Altgeld, deputy marshals and U. S. troops are called out to quell the
strikers.
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Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
Harriet Prescott Spofford, A Scarlet Poppy
and Other Stories
Kate Chopin, Bayou Folk
Howells, A Traveler from Altruria (utopian novel)
Death of
Constance Fenimore Woolson (b. 1840)
Edward Everett Hale,
The Brick Moon and Other Stories
Gertrude Atherton, Before the Gringo Came
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1895 |
Cuban rebellion.
Strike of trolley workers in Brooklyn, N. Y.,
leads to riots.
Crisis in waning gold reserves causes
hoarding.
Citing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Supreme
Court upholds an injunction against striking railway workers, claiming that
the strike impedes interstate commerce.
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Death of
Frederick Douglass
Alice Brown, Meadow-Grass: Tales of New
England Life
Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Violets and Other Tales
Constance Fenimore Woolson, The Front Yard and Other Italian Stories
Stephen Crane,The Red Badge of Courage; Black Riders
Ina Coolbrith
(1841-1928), Songs from the Golden Gate
Hamlin Garland, Rose of Dutcher's Coolly
James Lane Allen, A Kentucky Cardinal
Simon Pokagon,
An Indian on the Problems of His Race
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1896 |
19 January. First use of X-rays to treat
breast cancer.
23 April. At Koster and Bial's Music Hall in
New York, the public sees its first movie.
7 July.At the Democratic National Convention,
William Jennings Bryan electrifies the crowd with his
"Cross of Gold" speech supporting free silver (instead of the gold
standard).
12 August. The Klondike gold rush begins. By
1900, 100,000 people will have journeyed to the gold fields.
In the case of
Plessy v. Ferguson,
the Supreme Court upholds the "separate but equal" doctrine.
Utah becomes a state.
3 November. With a large percentage of the
electoral vote, Republican McKinley wins a bitterly contested presidential
election over William Jennings Bryan. The popular vote:
McKinley--7,104,799; Bryan--6,502,925. The
1896
page at Vassar College provides detailed information about the election.
10 December. Queen Liliuokalani, former ruler
of Hawaii, visits the United States.
The first comic strip, "The Yellow Kid,"
appears in Hearst's New York World. The term "yellow journalism"
(sensationalistic reporting) later derives from the connection.
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Henry
James, "The Figure in the Carpet"
Crane, George's Mother; The Little Regiment and Other Episodes
of the American Civil War
Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs
Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware
Abraham Cahan,
Yekl
Dickinson, Poems: Third Series
Paul Laurence Dunbar, Lyrics of Lowly Life
James Lane Allen, Summer in Arcady
Birth of F. Scott Fitzgerald (d. 1940)
Macmillan Co. founded.
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1897 |
William McKinley is inaugurated as president.
After being elected to a second term in 1900, he is assassinated in 1901.
William James, The Varieties of Religious
Experience
Backing away from earlier pro-business
decisions, the Supreme Court votes 5-4 that railroads are subject to the
Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
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Edwin Arlington Robinson, Children of the
Night
Simon Pogagon,
"The Future of the Red Man"
Mary Hartwell Catherwood, The Spirit of an
Illinois Town and The Little Renault
Ellen Glasgow, The Descendant
Kate Chopin, A Night in Acadie
James, What Maisie Knew; The Spoils of Poynton
Ruth McEnery Stuart,
In Simpkinsville: Character Tales
Richard Harding Davis,
Soldiers of Fortune
Doubleday & McClure founded.
Death of
Harriet Jacobs
Birth of William Faulkner (d. 1962)
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1898 |
15 February. The explosion and sinking of the
battleship Maine in Havana harbor results in 260 deaths, leading to
the battle slogan "Remember the Maine!"
25 February. Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Theodore Roosevelt sends the Pacific fleet to the Philippines.
7 July. Annexation of Hawaii.
Spanish-American War (April-December)
"Yellow Journalism"
Thorstein Veblen,
"The Barbarian Status of Women"
Rev. Louis Albert Banks,
White Slaves, or the Oppression of the Worthy Poor
(Note: This is a large .PDF file.)
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Gertrude Atherton, The Californians
Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley in Peace and
in War
Henry James, "The Turn of the Screw"
Stephen Crane, The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure
Brander Matthews, Outlines in Local Color
Abraham Cahan,
The
Imported Bridegroom and Other Stories
Frank Norris, Moran of the "Lady Letty"
Death of Edward Bellamy (b. 1850)
Death of
Harold Frederic (b. 1856)
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1899 |
Philippine insurrection (1899-1902); Howells
and Twain oppose U. S. involvement.
The Anti-Imperialist League
is formed on February 17.
Inspired by Jean-François Millet's
L'homme à la houe, Edwin Markham publishes "The
Man with the Hoe" in the San Francisco Examiner. It becomes the
most popular poem published in the United States to date and influences
Frank Norris's The Octopus.
August.
Scott Joplin publishes the
"Maple Leaf Rag," the most famous of his works. Other rags (published in
1902) include
"Peacherine,""The
Entertainer," and
"The
Strenuous Life," the last-named a tribute to Theodore Roosevelt.
Thorstein Veblen,
The Theory of the Leisure Class
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Chesnutt, The Conjure Woman and The Wife of His Youth and
Other Stories of the Color Line
Crane,The Monster and War is Kind
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Alice Dunbar-Nelson, The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories
Alice Brown, Tiverton Tales
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-paper
James,The Awkward Age
Norris, McTeague; Blix
Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835-1921),
The Nemesis of Motherhood
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