After Belva Lockwood received her law degree, she found that the federal Court of Claims refused to allow her to plead cases. In 1876 Lockwood's petition to argue before the US Supreme Court was denied. In 1879, Lockwood successfully petitioned Congress to pass an act allowing women to practice before the US Supreme Court and in 1880, due to her efforts, became the first woman allowed to do so.
In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled a Louisiana law segregating train cars was constitutional based on the doctrine of “separate but equal.”
In Chicago, a disastrous fire destroys nearly four square miles of the city, leaving 300 people dead and 100,000 homeless. The city soon redevelops and rebuilds, emerging as a major industrial and economic center.
Railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, initiated a strike to protest working conditions and wages. The strike spread and lasted more than a month, sparking violence and damaging the economy before being put down by federal troops.
Several regional Farmers’ Alliances merged to form the National Farmers’ Alliance.
In Chicago’s Haymarket Square, anarchists gathered to protest the police killing of labor strikers. When police attempted to end the demonstration, a bomb was thrown and exploded in the crowd. In the ensuing clash, police fired into the crowd and eight policemen and several protestors were killed and many more injured.
In response to falling steel prices, Henry C. Frick, the general manager of Andrew Carnegie’s steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, cut wages and attempted to quash the workers’ Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. The workers protested, and Frick closed the mills and refused to negotiate with the union, declaring that he would only deal with individual workers. The workers tried to appeal to Carnegie, who had defended unionization, but Carnegie made himself unavailable. The workers voted to strike, and Frick hired a private...
The Populist Party (or People’s Party of America) held its first convention in Omaha, Nebraska, and ratified the Omaha Platform documenting the tenets of the party.
Pullman Palace Car Company workers initiated a boycott of Pullman train cars through the American Railway Union. The boycott, observed by 150,000 members of the American Railway Union, stopped rail traffic in and out of Chicago and affected rail traffic across the country. The US Attorney General issued an injunction against the striking workers, and President Grover Cleveland sent federal forces to protect trains being run by non-union strikebreakers. Pro-union mobs destroyed trains and buildings, leading to the jailing of union and strike...