Milestones

1808

Congress bans further importation of slaves

1842

Massachusetts declares unions legal in

1822

Thirty-seven slaves are executed when Denmark

Commonwealth v. Hunt

Vesey’s “conspiracy” is exposed

1846

Elias Howe invents sewing machine

1825

Erie Canal is completed, connecting the East and

1850

Congress grants land to aid construction of Illinois

The Midwest

Central Railroad

1830

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad begins operation

1854

Clipper ship Flying Cloud sails from New York to

1831

Nat Turner’s slave uprising kills fifty-seven whites

San Francisco in eighty-nine days

1837

Cyrus Hall McCormick invents reaper to

1857

Brief economic depression (Panic of 1857)

Harvest wheat

Collapses economy

1839

John Deere begins manufacturing steel plows

1840-

Economy surges during boom in manufacturing,

1857

Railroad construction, and foreign commerce