United States 1890

Synopsis

The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was Congress's first attempt to curb the monopolistic practices of large corporations, trusts, and other forms of business organization. In the following decades, however, the Sherman Act was often used as a tool against organized labor. Employers argued successfully before the courts that union activities were an illegal restraint of trade of the kind that the act was designed to curtail.

President Theodore Roosevelt. The Library of Congress.

Timeline

• 1870: Beginning of Franco-Prussian War. German troops sweep over France, Napoleon III is dethroned, and France's Second Empire gives way to the Third Republic.
• 1876: Four-stroke cycle gas engine introduced.
• 1880: South Africa's Boers declare an independent republic, precipitating the short First Anglo-Boer War.
• 1883: Foundation of the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of Labor by Marxist political philosopher Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov marks the formal start of Russia's labor movement...