Timeline: 1850-1900

Major Economists of This Era

• Karl Marx (1818-1883)
• Leon Walras (1834-1910)
• Alfred Marshall (1842-1924)

1860

• Civil War begins at Fort Sumter, South Carolina
• Issue of Greenbacks to help finance the Civil War marks the beginning of modern currency in USA
• Etienne Lenoir invents internal combustion engine in France
• National Banking Act establishes a system of federally-chartered banks in the USA
• Civil War ends when South surrenders at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia
• Karl Marx begins writing Das Kapital, which will form the basis for the Marxist School of economic theory
• Alfred Nobel invents dynamite
• Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Utah

1870

• The Standard Oil Company is founded by John D. Rockefeller
• City of Chicago destroyed by fire
• Germany adopts the mark as its currency
• Financial panic in Europe spreads to USA, causing withdrawal of foreign capital
• Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone
• Thomas Alva Edison invents the phonograph and electric light bulb
• Beginning of the Marginalist School of economic theory

1880

• American Federation of Trades and Labor is founded
• William LeBaron Jenney builds first skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois
• France presents the Statue of Liberty to the USA
• Louis Pasteur successfully uses vaccination against rabies
• Heinrich Hertz identifies radio waves
• Gottlieb Daimler builds first automobile
• Eiffel Tower is built in Paris for World Exposition of 1889

1890

• Labor unrest erupts in USA when workers strike the Carnegie Steel Company
• Alfred Marshall publishes Principles of Economics
• The Sierra Club is founded by John Muir
• Sigmund Freud establishes psychoanalysis with publishing of Studien uber Hysterie
• Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen discovers X-rays
• U.S. Congress enacts Income Tax Act, but Supreme Court declares it unconstitutional
• Henry Ford produces his first automobile