Economy and Technology

Agriculture, slavery, industry, labor, depression, prosperity, and the digital age.

33 entries, in chronological order

Exploration and Early Colonization1492–1607

Illustration from the Florentine Codex showing Nahua people suffering from smallpox

1492 – c. 1600sConcept

The Columbian Exchange

The transfer of plants, animals, people, and diseases between the hemispheres after 1492

Colonial America1607–1763

Replicas of the ships that carried the Jamestown colonists

May 13, 1607Event

The Founding of Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, 1607

Wilson Chinn, a formerly enslaved man from Louisiana, photographed in 1863

1619–1865Concept

Slavery in America

The institution that shaped the nation’s economy, politics, and conflicts for nearly 250 years

Revolution and Independence1763–1789

1757 (disputed)–1804Person

Alexander Hamilton

First secretary of the Treasury and architect of the federal financial system

Bostonians reading news of the Stamp Act

Mar 1765 – Mar 1766Event

The Stamp Act Crisis

The first great colonial protest against taxation by Parliament

Currier print of colonists dumping tea into Boston Harbor

Dec 16, 1773Event

The Boston Tea Party

Colonists destroy East India Company tea in Boston Harbor

Illustration of Shays’s forces fleeing troops at Springfield

Aug 1786 – Feb 1787Event

Shays’ Rebellion

An armed uprising of indebted farmers that shook the new nation

The Early Republic1789–1828

1817–1825Event

The Erie Canal

The 363-mile “artificial river” that linked the Great Lakes to New York City in 1825

1819Court Case

McCulloch v. Maryland

The Supreme Court upholds broad federal power and bars states from taxing the national bank

Expansion and Sectional Conflict1828–1860

Daguerreotype of California gold miners working a long tom sluice, about 1850–1852

Jan 24, 1848Event

The California Gold Rush

The 1848 discovery at Sutter’s Mill that sent fortune seekers flooding west

Civil War and Reconstruction1861–1877

1863 – May 10, 1869Event

The Transcontinental Railroad

Rails across the continent, 1863–1869

Industrialization and the Gilded Age1877–1900

1835–1919Person

Andrew Carnegie

Steel magnate and philanthropist of the Gilded Age

1847–1931Person

Thomas Edison

Inventor of the phonograph and a practical electric light, and creator of the modern research laboratory

Joseph Keppler’s cartoon of giant moneybags representing trusts looming over the U.S. Senate

c. 1870s – c. 1900sConcept

The Gilded Age

An era of industrial wealth, inequality, and corruption, c. 1870–1900

Strikers at the start of the 1912 Lawrence textile strike

1877–1935Movement

The Labor Movement

Workers organize for wages, hours, and a voice on the job

Judge magazine cartoon of William Jennings Bryan in 1896

1890–1896Movement

Populism and the People’s Party

The farmers’ revolt of the 1890s

Strikers outside the Arcade Building in Pullman, Illinois

May 11, 1894 – Jul 1894Event

The Pullman Strike

A national railroad boycott crushed by federal troops, 1894

The Progressive Era and World War I1900–1920

1863–1947Person

Henry Ford

Automaker who put America on wheels with the Model T, the moving assembly line, and the Five Dollar Day

John T. Daniels’s photograph of the Wright Flyer’s first flight on December 17, 1903, with Wilbur Wright running alongside the wingtip

Dec 17, 1903Event

The Wright Brothers’ First Flight

Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, December 17, 1903: the first powered, controlled airplane flights

Mar 25, 1911Event

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

A disaster that changed American workplace safety, March 25, 1911

The Twenties and the Great Depression1920–1939

1901–1966Person

Walt Disney

Creator of Mickey Mouse, the animated feature film, and Disneyland

1926–1985Place

Route 66

The “Mother Road” from Chicago to Santa Monica

Dorothea Lange’s photograph Migrant Mother

Aug 1929 – 1941Event

The Great Depression

The deepest economic collapse in American history, 1929–1941

Crowd gathered outside the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929

Oct 24–29, 1929Event

Stock Market Crash of 1929

The collapse that ended the Roaring Twenties boom

Collage of New Deal programs and posters

Mar 4, 1933 – 1938Event

The New Deal

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s programs of relief, recovery, and reform, 1933–1939

Aug 14, 1935Document

Social Security Act

The 1935 law that created old-age pensions and unemployment insurance

World War II and the Early Cold War1939–1960

1948–1952Event

The Marshall Plan

The European Recovery Program, 1948–1952

William Pickering, James Van Allen, and Wernher von Braun hold up a model of Explorer 1, America’s first satellite, in 1958

Oct 4, 1957 – Jul 20, 1969Event

The Space Race

From Sputnik to the moon: the Cold War contest for supremacy in space, 1957–1969

Civil Rights and Social Transformation1954–1980

Farm workers on strike in Delano, California, October 1965

1962–1975Movement

The Farm Workers Movement

The Delano grape strike, the boycott, and the United Farm Workers

President Lyndon Johnson signing the Medicare bill with Harry Truman beside him

May 1964 – 1968Event

The Great Society

Lyndon Johnson’s program to end poverty and racial injustice, 1964–1968

Buzz Aldrin standing on the Moon in his spacesuit

Jul 16–24, 1969Event

Apollo 11

The first human landing on the Moon, July 1969

Conservative Realignment and the End of the Cold War1980–2001

Logical map of the ARPANET in September 1973

1969–presentConcept

The Digital Revolution

Computers, the internet, and smartphones transform American life

The United States in the Twenty-First Century2001–present

Lehman Brothers headquarters in New York City on September 15, 2008, the month the firm filed for bankruptcy

Dec 2007 – Jun 2009Event

The Great Recession

The financial crisis and deep recession of 2007–2009