- The Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence v. Powderly.
- The Haymarket riot was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago.
- The interstate commerce act of 1887 is a United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates.
The panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in that year. Similar to the panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures.
- The Pullman strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States on May 11, 1894. It pitted the American Railway Union against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland.
- The American federation of labor was a national federation unions in the United States. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in May 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of labor , a national labor association.