The end of an era comes upon the United States with the declaration by the government that the frontier is now settled.

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.

1891:
900,000 acres of Indian land in Oklahoma is opened for general settlement by a presidential proclamation.

1892:
Ellis Island in New York harbor becomes the primary receiving station for immigrants. Grover Cleveland is inaugurated as the twenty-fourth President of the United States. Cleveland is the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms. Henry Ford tests his first successful automobile.

1894:
The first graduated income tax law is passed, and denounced as "socialism, communism, devilism."

1895:
The song "America the Beautiful" is introduced. Guglielmo Marconi invents the wireless telegraph. Sears, Roebuck and Company opens a mail-order business. Drawings by Charles Dana Gibson begin to appear in reproductions, and "The Gibson Girl" becomes an American ideal.

1896:
The U.S. Supreme Court espouses the policy of "separate but equal" facilities and accommodations for the races in Plessy v. Ferguson, thus legitimating more than a decade of Southern "Jim Crow Laws" and leading to nearly 60 years of legal segregation in America. Henry Ford and his associates complete the assembly of the first American automobile for sale to the public.

1897:
News of the gold strike on the Klondike River in Alaska reaches the U.S. and sets off the "Klondike Stampede". A modern subway system is completed in Boston, Massachusetts.

1898:
President McKinley asks for a Congressional resolution authorizing the use of the U.S. Army and Navy to force Spain to leave Cuba. Spain declares war on the U.S. on April 25. In the "splendid little war" with Spain, the United States acquires Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands, the start of a colonial empire abroad. Many of the policies of the frontier, particularly those applied to American Indian people, are used in U. S. relations with the inhabitants of these newly-acquired areas.

1899:
John Dewey, an educator, revolutionizes American education with the publication of The School and Society. Scott Joplin writes down one of his tunes, "Maple Leaf Rag," which becomes an immediate, popular success and introduces the vogue for "ragtime" music among white musicians and listeners throughout the U.S.

1900:
Orville and Wilbur Wright fly their first full-scale glider at Kitty Hawk, N.C. Its "wing-warping" technique is the first successful device built for lateral control of flight. Twelfth census: U.S. population - 75,995,000. New York is the largest U.S. city, with a population of 3,437,000. Average life expectancy (not average age of death) is forty-eight years for males and fifty-one years for females.

Immigration to the U.S. since 1820 has numbered:
17,286,000 from Europe
370,000 from Asia
1,219,000 from Canada and Latin America
249,000 from all other places

<1880-1890