1880:
Gold is discovered near Juneau, Alaska. Tenth census: U.S. population - 50,156,000.

1881:
Large corporations begin to form, as wealthy "robber barons" who made their fortunes on government contracts during the Civil War grow wealthier. The gap between rich and poor grows greater. James Garfield is inaugurated as the twentieth President of the United States. President Garfield is shot in a Washington, D.C. railroad station by Charles J. Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker. Garfield dies two months later from the effects of the bullet wound. Guiteau is hanged in Washington. Chester A. Arthur is inaugurated as the twenty-first President of the United States. Clara Barton, who worked in Civil War hospitals and with the International Red Cross in Geneva during the Franco-Prussian War, returns to the U.S. to establish the American Red Cross. The second transcontinental railroad is completed.

1882:
The Standard Oil Trust, the most famous American cartel is organized. Using laws and governing trust funds, John D. Rockefeller and his associates create a monopoly within the oil industry.

1883:
The Brooklyn Bridge is completed from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn, New York. It is the largest suspension bridge in the world to date. William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody organizes his first Wild West Show. Mark Twain publishes Life on the Mississippi, recollections of the heyday of steam boating on the great river before the Civil War.

1884:
Otto Mergenthaler patents his mechanical typesetter and revolutionizes mass circulation newspaper production. Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a profound study of race relations and tolerance.

1885:
Grover Cleveland is inaugurated as the twenty-second President of the United States. The first "skyscraper" is completed; Chicago's Home Life Insurance Building is made possible by the new use of all-iron frame construction.

1886:
The American Federation of Labor is organized in Columbus, Ohio, and Samuel Gompers becomes its first President. The Apache Chief, Geronimo, is captured in Arizona by Federal troops commanded by General Miles. The last major Indian War has ended.

1887:
The free delivery of mail is provided in all communities with a population of at least ten thousand. George Eastman of Rochester, New York, patents the first successful roll film for cameras.

1888:
The first electric automobile, designed by Philip W. Pratt, is demonstrated in Boston. First the Great Plains, then New York City and the East Coast are paralyzed by a March blizzard which lasts thirty-six hours.

1889:
Benjamin Harrison is inaugurated as the twenty-third President of the United States. Nellie Bly, a reporter for The New York World, sets out on a round-the-world trip in an attempt to better the record of Jules Verne's fictional journey in Around the World in Eighty Days. Bly is successful when she reaches home in seventy-two days, six hours, eleven minutes, and fourteen seconds.

1890:
The Lakota (Sioux) chief Sitting Bull is killed by soldiers in South Dakota during a U.S. Army effort to curb the influence of the "Ghost Dance," a religious rite thought to be dangerous to the white population in the area. Through the efforts of environmentalist John Muir, two million acres in the Sierra Mountains behind the Yosemite Valley, as well as the surrounding groves of Sequoia trees, are declared National Parks by Congress and signed into law by President Harrison. Eleventh census: U.S. population - 62,948,000. The census declares that a frontier has ceased to exist in the U.S.

<1870-1880|1890-1900>