BUSINESS AND THE ECONOMY: IMPORTANT EVENTS OF THE 1900s

1900

10 Jan.: The National Civic Federation is established in Chicago to promote labor-management relations with representatives from business, the labor, and the public.
14 Mar.: Congress passes the Gold Standard Act to improve the national currency.
18 Mar.: Veteran train engineer of the Chicago and New Orleans Limited, John Luther "Casey" Jones, thirty-six, stays at the throttle of the Cannonball Express in an attempt to slow down the six-coach train and spare as many lives as possible. At more than seventy miles per hour, Jones rounds a curve near Vaughan, Mississippi, to find a train stalled on the track in front of him, and the crash is unavoidable. His heroic death would later be immortalized by another railroad worker in the ballad "Casey Jones."
31 Mar.: The era of the automobile begins as the first national advertisement for automobiles appears in The Saturday Evening Post
1 May: More than two hundred miners are killed in an explosion in Scofield, Utah.
26 May: The horsecar era comes to an end as the last horsecar to operate in the United States makes its final run in Washington, D.C.
3 June: The International Ladies Garment Workers Union is founded in New York City with a charter by the American Federation of Labor.
17 Sept.: The newly formed United Mine Workers (UMW) stages its first strike in Pennsylvania with nearly one hundred thousand miners participating.
29 Oct.: With pressure from the Republican Party, the mine owners grant minor pay concessions and the United Mine Workers return to work. Additional negotiations between the mine owners and the UMW continue throughout 1901 on various labor issues.
3 Nov.: The first U.S. National Automobile Show opens at New York's Madison Square Garden and lasts a week. The show features fifty-one exhibitors and numerous contests on starting, stopping, turning, and obstacle-course proficiency.
6 Nov.: Under the "full dinner pail" slogan as a symbol of prosperity brought about by the Republican Party, Republican candidate William McKinley is reelected president with a percentage of the popular vote exceeding his previous election. Theodore Roosevelt is elected his vice president.
15 Nov.: The Carnegie Institute of Technology is founded by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie in Pittsburgh. The institute personifies his belief that contribution to society should be made while donors are living. Carnegie will donate $5.2 million to fund branches of the New York Public Library.

1901

10 Jan.: The oil gusher Spindletop blasts near Beaumont, Texas, establishing the petroleum industry in Texas.
25 Feb.: Formed from a merger of ten companies, U.S. Steel is established as the world's largest industrial corporation.
9 May: The largest single-day decline in the stock market since 1803 occurs, with some stocks dropping twenty points.
6 Sept.: President McKinley is shot twice at point-blank range while attending a public reception at the Temple of Music in the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. One bullet goes into McKinley's stomach and another hits his breast-plate. Doctors are unable to locate the bullets and close the wounds.
14 Sept.: President McKinley, fifty-eight, dies from complications from gangrene from improperly dressed wounds, and Roosevelt is inaugurated as the twenty-fifth president, the youngest to date at the age of forty-two.

1902

19 Feb.: The Sherman Antitrust Act is used for the first time against the Northern Securities Company, formed by a railroad merger.
12 May: The Anthracite Coal Strike begins and lasts five months, nearly crippling the nation. The United Mine Workers' demands include union representation, wage increases of 20 percent, and eight-hour workdays.
1 June: The state of Maryland passes a workers' compensation law, the nation's first.
17 June: The National Reclamation Act, also called the Newlands Act as well as the Irrigation Bill, is passed by Congress, authorizing the federal government to build dams in the West for irrigation. The act is considered vital to westward expansion and the farming sector. The first dam to be built under the act is the Roosevelt Dam, located on the Salt River in Arizona.
3 Oct.: Representatives of labor and management are invited to Washington by President Roosevelt to confer with him in settling the Anthracite Coal Strike.
16 Oct.: A special commission is appointed by Roosevelt to mediate the Anthracite Coal Strike.
21 Oct.: The head of the United Mine Workers, John Mitchell, calls off the twenty-three-week strike as negotiations begin, though a settlement is not reached until the following March.
16 Nov.: The famous "Drawing the Line in Mississippi" political cartoon appears in the Washington Post and the Washington Evening Star, depicting Roosevelt's refusal to participate in the staged killing of a bear on a hunting expedition. The cartoon is the impetus for the creation of the teddy bear and the first U.S. manufacturer of toy bears, the Ideal Toy and Novelty Company.

1903

4 Feb.: As a result of antitrust investigations, Congress passes the Elkins Act, which regulates interstate commerce activities and is specifically targeted at the railroads.
11 Feb.: Congress passes the Expedition Act, giving antitrust suits precedence over other docketed cases.
14 Feb.: The Department of Commerce and Labor is created at the cabinet level by Congress. The original act includes a provision for a Bureau of Corporations to investigate the organization, conduct, or management of any company.
25 Feb.: The Immunity Provision Act is passed, providing protection for witnesses, especially employees of corporations who are called to testify in antitrust cases.
22 Mar.: The Anthracite Mediation Commission appointed by Roosevelt the previous October renders its decision. Concessions are made to both the mine operators and the United Mine Workers.
6 May: In a speech at the Grand Canyon, Roosevelt uses the term "Square Deal" publicly for the first time. A term that is used to represent the balancing of interests of business, labor, and the public, the Square Deal will later become Roosevelt's 1904 presidential platform.
14 July: Roosevelt settles a union dispute as to whether civil service employees are in a closed or open shop. In the previous weeks William A. Miller had been fired as a foreman in the Government Printing Office when he was expelled from the union, the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders, for openly criticizing their hiring practices. Roosevelt intervened, and his decision made the civil service an open shop, meaning that union membership was not a requirement to be hired because such a requirement was incongruent with the current labor laws of the United States.
8 Aug.: Nearly four thousand miners of the Western Federation of Miners walk out in Cripple Creek, Colorado, because of a reduced workday and lowered wages.
4 Sept.: Federal troops arrive in Colorado to intervene in the continuing strike, and a few of the mines reopen.
22 Oct.: The Electrical Vehicle Company and George B. Selden file suit against the Ford Motor Company for infringement of the Selden patent on engines. The case, known as the Selden Patent Case, will not go to trial for six years.
30 Nov.: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Atkin v. Kansas that an eight-hour workday for public-works construction workers is constitutional.
17 Dec.: The Wright brothers make their first sustained manned flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, creating what will eventually become the airline industry.

1904

7 Feb.: The business center of Baltimore burns for more than a day, resulting in $85 million in damage, with more than 140 acres encompassing seventy-five square blocks being destroyed.
14 Mar.: The Supreme Court rules in Northern Securities v. United States that the railroad merger violates the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
30 Apr.: The World's Fair, called the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, begins in Saint Louis after a dedication by Roosevelt and is open for seven months.
4 June: The Independence railroad station in Colorado is destroyed by an explosion that kills fourteen nonunion miners who were waiting for the train after finishing work at the Findley Mine. The Western Federation of Miners is charged with the crime, though a spy working for the Mine Owners' Association would later confess.
27 Oct.: The first rapid transit system, the New York City subway system, opens.
8 Nov.: Running on the Square Deal platform, Republican candidate Theodore Roosevelt is elected in his own right as president in a landslide victory with Charles W. Fairbanks, a senator from Indiana, as his running mate.
1 Dec.: A publication of the National Association of Manufacturers titled American Industries likens union labor's request for a shorter workday to communism.
A fifteen-month strike that began in August 1903 at the gold mine in Cripple Creek, Colorado, by the Western Federation of Miners ends in concessions being made by the Mine Owners' Association, including a three-dollar-a-day minimum wage for an eight-hour day.

1905

8 Jan.: A strike lasting more than five months by textile workers in Fall River, Massachusetts, ends successfully, with labor concessions being granted.
30 Jan.: The beef trust case, Swift and Company v. United States, is filed by the Justice Department because of monopolization of the fresh meat market.
23 Feb.: The Rotary Club, the first business-related service organization, is founded in Chicago.
17 Apr.: The Supreme Court rules in Lochner v. New York that limiting the maximum number of hours an employee works is unconstitutional.
27 June: The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is created as a nationwide industrial union. The "Wobblies," as IWW members are called, seek to unite all industrial workingmen in a union.
30 Dec.: Former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg is murdered by a bomb explosion in his home in Caldwell, Idaho. Prominent union organizers from the Western Federation of Miners, including William D. "Big Bill" Haywood, are accused. The case, settled in 1907, becomes one of the most notorious labor trials of the century.

1906

21 Feb.: The Heyburn Bill is passed by Congress, regulating the producers and sellers of food.
12 Mar.: Trustbusting continues with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Hale v. Henkel that employees called as witnesses in antitrust cases can be forced to testify against their employers.
14 Apr.: Roosevelt delivers his infamous "muck-rake" speech in a Washington, D.C., address.
18 Apr.: The San Francisco earthquake hits in the morning, destroying the business district and much of the city. More than 500 blocks are gutted in fires erupting after the quake that leave 250,000 people homeless, 25,000 buildings destroyed, and 500 dead.
3 May: The advertising age is born with the First Annual Advertising Show opening in New York City.
4 June: A specially appointed presidential commission issues the Neill-Reynolds report, documenting the dismal conditions in the meatpacking industry. The commission was appointed as a result of a novel by Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, published earlier in the year.
29 June: The Hepburn Act, which broadens the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) by overhauling the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, is passed by Congress.
30 June: In response to the Neill-Reynolds report, Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act, which requires federal inspection of all meat involved in interstate and foreign commerce.
The Pure Food and Drug Act, prohibiting the mislabeling or adulteration of food involved in interstate and foreign commerce, is passed.
The Act Defending Right of Immunity revises the Immunity Provision Act of 1903 regarding witnesses testifying in antitrust legislation and applies only to a "natural person" who testifies in "obedience to a subpoena."
12 July: The drowned body of factory worker Grace Brown is found in the Adirondacks. Her supervisor from work, Chester Gillette, is convicted. The case provided the inspiration for Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy (1925).
22 July: The cable car era comes to an end as the last cable car operating in the United States makes its final run in Chicago.

1907

13 Mar.: As the stock market drops, a financial panic begins, resulting in unemployment, high food prices, and bank failures by the end of the year. An order that segregated Japanese, Chinese, and Korean students is dropped by the San Francisco school board. Originally passed on 11 October 1906, the order is rescinded on condition that a "Gentlemen's Agreement" between the United States and Japan that was passed in August 1900 is enforced. The agreement requires Japan to limit the number of laborers allowed to immigrate to the United States by refusing to issue passports.
29 July: William D. "Big Bill" Haywood is found not guilty in the murder of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg. Instrumental to the case is a confession from the killer, found to be working for the Mine Owners' Association, that the bomb was planted to frame union organizers, a revelation that shocked the public.
21 Oct.: A run on the Knickerbocker Trust Company ruins the bank. In the coming weeks other banks and trusts fail, requiring the infusion of money from the U.S. Treasury and from the private sector under the leadership of J. P. Morgan.
6 Dec.: A total of 361 coal miners die in an explosion in Monongah, West Virginia.
19 Dec.: A total of 239 coal miners die in an explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.

1908

27 Jan.: The Supreme Court rules in Adair v. United States that a portion of the Erdman Act of 1898 outlawing yellow-dog contracts is unconstitutional.
3 Feb.: The U.S. Supreme Court issues a unanimous ruling in the Danbury Hatters case, Loewe v. Lawlor, stating that a nationwide boycott of the industry is a restraint of trade under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
10 Feb.: The Wright brothers sign their first army contract for the delivery of a plane, establishing the record of a bid-to-contract time frame of five days. The conditional contract will be finalized upon successful operation of the plane.
24 Feb.: The U.S. Supreme Court issues a unanimous ruling in the Muller v. Oregon case, holding that laws limiting the maximum number of hours that women can work to ten hours a day are constitutional.
16 Mar.: The first test of the Elkins Act (1903) occurs in Armour Packing Company v. United States, which affirms the ICC power to conduct railroad rate investigations.
20 Mar.: Though maintaining his innocence throughout his trial and imprisonment, Chester E. Gillette is electrocuted for the 1906 drowning murder of Grace Brown, his employee and lover.
22 Apr.: Congress passes the Employers' Liability Act for interstate commerce.
30 May: Congress passes the Aldrich-Vreeland Act to correct deficiencies in the banking system that created the Panic of 1907.
26 July: The precursor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation is established as a branch of the Justice Department to investigate organized labor, fight the greed of big business, and prevent thievery of public lands.
1 Oct.: The Ford Motor Company unveils the Model T with a price tag starting at $825, signaling the automobile age for the masses.
3 Nov.: In a narrow victory, Republican candidate William Howard Taft is elected the twenty-seventh president of the United States with only 51.6 percent of the popular vote. In keeping with the tradition against a third term, Roosevelt declined to run for reelection and supported Taft, the secretary of war during the Roosevelt administration.

1909

16 Mar.: After disputes concerning the use of Secret Service agents from the U.S. Treasury for investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is established as a separate division.
28 May: The Selden Patent Case, filed in 1903, opens with complicated arguments over whether the patent on the invention that was not enforced for sixteen years represented a restricted or nonrestricted patent. If a nonrestrictive or broad patent is proved, then royalties on the thousands of cars made since the patent was filed in 1879 would have to be paid to Selden. Selden wins the case, and most established car companies pay the licensing fee. Ford refuses and files an appeal, which he wins in 1910. The case is instrumental in reforming patent laws.
12 July: The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, authorizing income taxes, is passed by Congress.
2 Aug.: The Wright brothers deliver their first plane to Signal Corps at a cost of $30,000.
5 Aug.: The controversial Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act is signed by President Taft in keeping with his campaign promise to reduce tariffs instituted by the Dingley Tariff of 1897.
13 Nov.: More than 250 miners are killed in an explosion at the Saint Paul Mine in Cherry, Illinois.
22 Nov.: A three-month strike by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union begins in New York, with twenty thousand U.S. garment workers protesting.