Thematic Timeline - WORK, EXCHANGE, AND TECHNOLOGY

Example of a thematic timeline for "Work, Exchange, and Technology"

1450

~Diversified economies of Native America

~Rise of the Ottoman Empire blocks Asian trading routes of the Italian city-states

~Europeans fish off North American coast

~Portuguese traders explore African coast

1550

~Growth of the outwork system in English textile industry

~Spanish encomienda system organizes native labor in Mexico

~Inca mita system is co-opted by the Spanish in the Andes

1600

~First staple exports from the English mainland colonies: furs and tobacco

~Subsistence farms in New England

~Transition to sugar plantation system in the Caribbean islands

1660

~South Atlantic System links plantation and neo-European colonies

~Mercantilist legislation in England: Navigation Acts (1651, 1660, 1663)

~New York inherits Hudson River Valley manors from the Dutch; Carolina proprietors try but fail to institute a manorial system

~Migrants to Pennsylvania seek freehold lands

~Rapid expansion of African slave imports undergirds sugar, tobacco, and rice plantation systems

1690

~New England shipbuilding industry and merchant community come to dominate the coastal trade

~Agricultural labor and artisanal skills in high demand in the Middle colonies

1700

~Tobacco trade stagnates

~Maturing yeoman economy and emerging Atlantic trade in New England

1720

~The price of wheat rises (doubles in Philadelphia, 1720-1770)

~British trade dominates the Atlantic

~Opportunity and inequality in the Middle colonies

~Ohio Company of Virginia receives 200,000 acres (1749)

1750

~Freehold society in crisis in New England

~Half of Middle colonies' white men landless

~Conflicts over western lands and political power (1750-1775)

~British industry being mechanized; colonial debt crisis

1763

~Merchants defy Sugar and Stamp Acts

~Patriots mount three boycotts of British goods, in 1765, 1767, and 1774

~Boycotts spur Patriot women to make textiles

1776

~Manufacturing expands during the war

~Cutoff of trade and severe inflation threaten economy

~War debt grows

~Bank of North America founded (1781)

1787

~Land speculation increases in the West

1800

~Cotton output and demand for African labor expands

~Farm productivity improves

~Congress approves funds for a National Road (1806)

~Embargo encourages U.S. manufacturing

1810

~Second Bank of the United States chartered (1816-1836)

~Supreme Court guards property

~First American textile factory opens in Waltham, Massachusetts (1814)

1820

~New England shoe industry expands

~Erie Canal completed (1825)

~Henry Clay's "American System" of government-assisted development

~Market economy expands nationwide

1830

~U.S. textiles compete with British goods

~Canal systems expand trade in eastern U.S.

~Financial panic of 1837 begins six-year depression

~Boom in cotton output

~Increase in waged work sparks conflict between labor and capital

1840

~American machine tool industry expands

~Walker Tariff (1846) moves U.S. toward "free trade" system and principles of "classical liberalism", lowers rates, increases foreign imports

~Irish immigrants build northern canal system

~Some states default on canal bonds

1850

~Severe recession cuts industrial jobs (1858)

~Railroads connect Midwest and eastern ports

~Cotton production and prices rise, as does the cost of enslaved laborers

~White settlers expand farm society to trans-Mississippi west

~Entrepreneurs promote railroad building and manufacturing in North and Midwest

1860

~Republicans enact Whigs' economic policies: Homestead Act (1862), railroad aid, high tariffs, and national banking

~Women assume new tasks in war economies

1870

~Sharecropping spreads in South

~Ranchers create cattle empire on Great Plains

~Depression of 1873 halts railway expansion

~Economic depression (1873-1879)

~First department store opens in Philadelphia (1874)

~Great Railroad Strike (1877)

~Deskilling of labor under mass production

1880

~First vertically integrated corporations

~Rockefeller establishes Standard Oil Trust

~Emergence of white-collar managerial work

~Women enter paid labor as office workers

~Knights of Labor grows rapidly (mid-1880s)

~American Federation of Labor founded (1886)

1890

~Severe economic depression (1893-1897)

~Accelerated corporate mergers in key industries

~Birth of modern advertising

~Depression of 1890s increases pressure for U.S. to secure foreign markets

1900

~U.S. Steel becomes nation's first billion-dollar corporation (1901)

~Women's Trade Union League founded (1903)

~International Workers of the World founded (1905)

~Marianna mine disaster (1907)

~Muller v. Oregon (1908) permits state regulation of women's working hours

~Root-Takahira Agreement free oceanic commerce (1908)

1910

~Triangle Shirtwaist fire (1911)

~Great Migration brings African Americans to northern cities, Mexicans north to United States

~Assembly-line production begins

1920

~Economic prosperity (1922-1929)

~Labor gains rolled back

~Era of welfare capitalism

~Rise of automobile loans and consumer credit

1930

~Great Depression (1929-1941)

~Rise of CIO and organized labor

1940

~War spending ends depression

~Rationing curbs consumer spending

~Married women take war jobs

~Bretton Woods system established: World Bank, International Monetary Fund

~Baby boom establishes new consumer generation

1950

~Treaty of Detroit (1950)

~Military-industrial complex begins to rise

~National Defense Education Act (1958) spurs development of technology

1960

~Economic boom

~Government spending on Vietnam and Great Society

~Medicare and Medicaid created (1965)

1970

~Energy crisis (1973)

~Inflation surges, while economy stagnates (stagflation)

~Deindustrialization

~Tax revolt in California (1978)

1980

~Recession (1981-1982) followed by strong growth (1982-1987)

~Reagan tax cut (1981)

~Apple personal computer introduced (1983)

~National debt triples (1981-1989)

1990

~Internet gains popularity

~Recession (1990-1991)

~NAFTA ratified (1993)

~Debt reduction under Bill Clinton

2000

~Crisis in newspaper industry

~Great Recession (2007-2010)

~President Bush asks for and receives bank bailout from Congress (2008)

~Unemployment hits 10 percent

2010

~Financial industry accounts for largest share of GDP among all industry sectors