Thematic Timeline - CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Example of a thematic timeline for "Culture and Society"

1450

~Protestant Reformation (1517) sparks century of religious warfare

~Henry VIII creates Church of England (1534)

~Founding of Jesuit order (1540)

1550

~Philip II defends the Roman Catholic Church against Protestantism

~Elizabeth I adopts Protestant Book of Common Prayer (1559)

1600

~Persecuted English Puritans and Catholics migrate to America

~Established churches set up in Puritan New England and Anglican Virginia

~Dissenters settle in Rhode Island

1660

~Collapse of the Puritan Commonwealth leads to toleration in England

~Metacom's War in New England (1675-1676)

~Isaac Newton publishes Principia Mathematica (1687)

~Bacon's Rebellion calls for removal of Indians and end of elite rule

1690

~John Locke publishes Two Treatises on Government (1690)

~Salem witchcraft crisis (1692)

~Rise of toleration among colonial Protestants

~Print revolution begins

1720

~George Whitefield's visit to America sparks the Great Awakening (1739)

~Benjamin Franklin founds American Philosophical Society (1743)

~New colleges, newspapers, magazines

1750

~At least twelve religious denominations in Philadelphia

1763

~Neolin promotes nativist revival among Ohio Indians (1763)

~Patriots call for American unity

~The idea of natural rights poses a challenge to the institution of chattel slavery

1776

~Judith Sargent Murray publishes "On the Equality of the Sexes" (1779)

~Emancipation of slaves begins in the North

~Virginia enacts religious freedom (1786)

1787

~Politicians and ministers deny vote to women; praise republican motherhood

~Bill of Rights ratified (1791)

~Sedition Act limits freedom of the press (1798)

1800

~Free blacks enhance sense of African American identity

~Religious benevolence engenders social reform movements

1810

~In rural areas, people of different ranks share a common culture

~Upper-class women sponsor charitable organizations

1820

~Benevolent reform movements

~Emerson champions transcendentalism

~Charles Finney and others advance revivalist religion

~Industrialism fragments society into more distinct classes and cultures

1830

~Temperance crusade expands

~Joseph Smith and Mormonism

~Middle-class culture spreads

~Slavery defended as "positive good"

~Urban popular culture (sex trade and minstrelsy)

1840

~Fourierist and other communal settlements

~Seneca Falls Convention (1848) calls for women's rights

~Ideology of Manifest Destiny prompts U.S. expansionism

~Free-Soil Party (1848) advocates white smallholder farm society

1850

~American Renaissance: Melville, Whitman, and Hawthorne

~Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) attacks slavery

~Dred Scott decision (1857) opens way to legalize slavery nationwide

~Southern secessionists agitate for independence

1860

~Confederate States of America (1861-1865) vow to continue slavery

~Republicans seek to impose equal rights ideology on South

~Black families accept ideal of domesticity

1870

~Ku Klux Klan attacks Reconstruction governments

~Republicans embrace classical liberalism

~White elites challenge ideal of universal suffrage and deny women's suffrage

~Comstock Act bans circulation of most information about sex and birth control (1873)

~National League launches professional baseball (1876)

~Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879)

1880

~Increasing numbers of students attend college

~Booker T. Washington founds Tuskegee institute (1881)

~William Dean Howells calls for realism in literature (1881)

~Birth of American football

~Popularity of vaudeville (1880s-1890s)

1890

~Chicago World's Fair (1893)

~Literary realism and naturalism gain recognition

~Popularity of ragtime music (1890s-1900s)

~Rise of Social Gospel

~Joseph Pulitzer pioneers "yellow journalism"

~"Remember the Maine" campaign fuels surge in nationalism

1900

~Nickelodeons introduce commercial motion picture

~Custom of unchaperoned "dating" arises

~Rise of the Negro Leagues

~Peak in overseas missionary activity

~Advent of literary and artistic modernism

~Rise of modernism

1910

~Armory Show introduces modern art (1913)

~Moviemaking industry moves to southern California

~Birth of a Nation glorifies the Reconstruction-era Klan (1915)

~Radio Corporation of America created (1919)

1920

~Rise of Hollywood

~Harlem Renaissance

~Popularity of jazz music

~Scopes "monkey trial" (1925)

1930

~Documentary impulse in arts

~WPA assists artists

~Federal Writers' Project

1940

~Film industry aids war effort

1980

~HIV/AIDS crisis prompts national conversation about homosexuality

~Renewed emphasis on material success and the "rich and famous"

~Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)

1990

~Pat Buchanan declares "culture war" (1992)

~Proposition 209 ends affirmative action in California universities

~Defense of Marriage Act (1998)

~WTO protests in Seattle (1999)

2000

~Lawrence v. Texas (2003)

~Massachusetts becomes first state to legalize same-sex marriage (2004); nine states follow by 2012

~"War on terror" becomes fixture in American discourse

2010

~Congress and President Obama end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in U.S. military (2011)