In office, Grover Cleveland had pleased conservatives by advocating sound money and reduction of inflation, curbing party patronage, and vetoing government pensions. But he alienated business and labor interests by proposing a lower tariff and was defeated in the presidential race of 1888—winning the popular vote but losing the electoral vote to Republican Benjamin Harrison.
Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published. The library of Concord, Massachusetts, was the first of many to ban the book.
Nikola Tesla invented the alternating current (AC) motor, making it possible to transmit electricity over great distances.
The American Sugar Refining Company was created in August 1887. By 1898 it controlled 98 percent of the nation’s sugar refining industry.
Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner coined the phrase “the Gilded Age” to refer to the late nineteenth century in their book of the same name. In the popular view, the Gilded Age was a period of greed and guile, when rapacious robber barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers engaged in shady business practices and vulgar displays of wealth. It is easy to caricature the Gilded Age as an era of corruption, scandal-plagued politics, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism, but the Gilded Age can also be thought of...
Andrew Carnegie published his essay “The Gospel of Wealth” in May 1889. In it, Carnegie asserted the benefits and responsibilities of wealth, calling on the wealthy to consider “the most beneficial result for the community.”
After 1887, the tariff became the central issue in American politics. Democrats, led by Grover Cleveland, charged that the tariff raised prices, enriched the wealthy, and fostered inefficiency. Republicans argued that tariffs promoted infant industries, protected established industries, raised workers’ wages and protected them against low-wage competition, and fostered a rich home market for farm goods. In fact, the tariff was not especially important for manufacturers. European manufacturers could not compete with the American advantages...
In an attempt to counteract deflation, and over President Hayes’ veto, Congress passed the Bland-Allison Act, which authorized a limited amount of silver dollars.
Chester A. Arthur became president upon James Garfield’s death.
John Pierpont Morgan merged several of Andrew Carnegie’s companies to form US Steel.