As 1870 dawned, America was still reeling from the trauma of the Civil War. More than 600,000 lives had been lost, cities and farms across the South lay in ruins, and thousands of veterans carried the scars of war, both seen and unseen. Federal troops still occupied the South, and the work of healing a shattered nation had only just begun.

The country’s population had grown to nearly 38.6 million people, according to the 1870 census. A loaf of bread cost about a nickel — give or take depending on where you lived. Most Americans still lived and worked on farms. About half the workforce was involved in agriculture. But all that was about to change.

The 1870s would become a roller coaster decade for a healing nation, filled with inventions, expansion, political drama, economic crashes and some serious growing pains.

The 1870s was a pivotal decade for a nation beginning its second century as a democratic republic. Having survived its greatest test in the Civil War, the 1870s would shape the nation in ways its citizens could hardly have imagined in 1870. Here are some of the highlights — and lowlights — that made headlines during this formative era.

Reconstruction was in full swing at the start of the decade. After Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson had taken a lenient approach to letting former Confederate states back into the Union. Most ex-Confederates were pardoned as long as they pledged loyalty to the U.S., and they quickly began passing “Black Codes” to limit the rights of newly freed African Americans.

Voters in the North weren’t having it. In the 1866 elections, they handed power to the Radical Republicans in Congress, who pushed through tougher laws. Southern states were placed under military rule, and new rules were put in place for rejoining the Union.

By 1870, all the Southern states were back — at least on paper. Most were under Republican control, and for a brief moment in history, it looked like real change might happen.

One of the biggest moments of the decade came in early 1870, when the 15th Amendment was ratified. It guaranteed that the right to vote couldn't be denied based on race. Black men were now full participants in American democracy, at least in writing.

President Ulysses S. Grant called it “the most important event that has occurred since the nation came to life.”

The Daily National Republican newspaper agreed, reporting in its March 31, 1870, edition:

“The President yesterday announced, by a special message to Congress, the complete ratification of the fifteenth amendment of the Constitution. This is the crowning act in the total and entire emancipation of the colored race.”

For a time, the amendment sparked real political progress. African Americans were elected to state legislatures and even to Congress — 16 in all, including two senators.

But the backlash was swift and violent. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Black voters and Republican officials, trying to stop them from exercising their new rights. Grant’s administration tried to fight back with federal laws and enforcement, but the struggle was far from over.

By the mid-1870s, Northern interest in Reconstruction was fading. The Supreme Court was chipping away at civil rights protections, and only a few Southern states were still under Republican control.

Then came the presidential election of 1876. Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, but the electoral votes from Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina — the only states still under Republican control — were hotly contested. After months of wrangling, a deal was struck: Republican Rutherford B. Hayes got the presidency, and in return they agreed to pull federal troops out of the South.

“The Agony Over! Hayes Elected President,” trumpeted the National Republican newspaper on March 2, 1877.

It was called the Compromise of 1877, and it effectively ended Reconstruction. It set the stage for Jim Crow laws that would disenfranchise Black citizens for generations.

President Grant had a mixed record. He supported civil rights, established the first Civil Service Commission and created Yellowstone National Park in 1872 — the country’s first national park. But his presidency was also marred by scandal. From the Crédit Mobilier mess to the Whiskey Ring tax fraud, corruption seemed to follow him everywhere. Grant himself wasn’t accused of wrongdoing, but he admitted his biggest failure was putting too much trust in the wrong people. During his annual message in December 1876, Grant apologized to the nation: “Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent,” he said.

Railroad construction boomed after the Civil War. The first transcontinental railroad had been completed in 1869, and more than 35,000 miles of new track were laid from 1866 to 1873. Investors were pouring money into the booming industry.

Then it all crashed. In 1873, the failure of a major investment bank (Jay Cooke & Co.) triggered a financial panic as customers of other banks rushed to withdraw their money. The stock market collapsed. At least 100 banks failed, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Thousands of businesses shut down. Unemployment soared to as high as 14% by 1876.

The collapse triggered a deep and lasting depression. By 1877, tensions boiled over with the Great Railroad Strike. Workers walked off the job in multiple states. Trains stopped. Riots erupted. The federal government sent in troops, and more than 100 people were killed. It was the first major strike to paralyze the nation and marked the birth of a new labor movement.

Despite the turmoil, many Americans looked west for opportunity. The Homestead Act offered free land to those willing to brave the dangers, and railroads made travel easier and cheaper. But the expansion devastated the bison herds that once covered the continent’s interior. Plains Indian tribes, who relied on bison for food, clothing and tools, saw their way of life threatened. The clash of cultures led to a series of wars with Native Americans.

Civil War hero George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry Regiment rode to infamy on June 25, 1876. They were tracking Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho bands who resisted confinement to reservations.

Dividing his 600 troopers, Custer attacked an immense village along the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory. Outnumbered and cut off from the rest of his command, Custer and the 210 men with him were killed. In all, nearly 300 7th Cavalry soldiers died in what was known for years as “Custer’s Last Stand.”

The stunning defeat shocked the nation, especially since it happened during Centennial celebrations.

“DISASTER IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY,” the headline in The Girard Press (Kansas) blared on July 13, 1876.

A year later, the Nez Perce tribe tried to escape to Canada to avoid being forced onto a reservation. Led by Chief Joseph, their 1,170-mile flight nearly succeeded. But most were captured just 40 miles from the border. Chief Joseph’s heartbreaking surrender became legendary: “I will fight no more forever.”

Custer’s defeat wasn’t the first event to shock Americans in the 1870s. The Great Chicago Fire in 1871 killed 300 people, destroyed more than 17,000 buildings over 3.5 square miles, and caused $200 million in damage. Nearly 100,000 people were left homeless by the nation’s most famous fire.

But the same night the Chicago fire broke out, an even deadlier fire — the Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin and Michigan — killed an estimated 1,200 people. Most Americans don’t know about it today, but the wildfire was the deadliest in U.S. history.

There were triumphs, too.

In 1876, the country threw itself a huge birthday bash. The Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia ran from May to November, drawing nearly 10 million visitors to see the latest innovations. Cities across the United States and its territories celebrated the Centennial with picnics, parades, patriotic speeches and, of course, fireworks.

After Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to run for president in 1872, members of the National Woman Suffrage Association crashed the 1876 Centennial celebration at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall to deliver the “Declaration of the Rights of Women.” Despite their efforts, it would be more than 40 years before women gained the right to vote.

The decade saw explosive innovation. Montgomery Ward published the first mail-order catalog in 1872, and Frank Winfield Woolworth opened his first “Five Cent Store” in Utica, N.Y., in 1879.

Adolphus Busch developed a method of pasteurizing beer, allowing national distribution.

Henry J. Heinz introduced his tomato ketchup in 1876, while Nestlé produced its first chocolate bar in 1879. James and John Ritty invented the cash register that same year. African American inventor Thomas Elkins patented a refrigerating apparatus for food storage.

On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell uttered his now-famous words into the first telephone: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.”

Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877 and improved the light bulb in 1879 using a bamboo filament that lasted up to 1,200 hours.

In time these inventions would change the way people lived.

By the end of the decade, America was shifting from an agricultural society to an industrial powerhouse. The expansion of railroads had opened the door to mass production and national markets, propelling America into the Industrial Revolution.

Factories were booming as machines revolutionized production of clothing, footwear, food and more — lowering prices and increasing output.

Millions of immigrants arrived between 1870 and 1900, forming the labor backbone of the nation’s factories and mines. Young Americans were leaving the farm to find work in cities.

At the top, a new class of ultra-wealthy tycoons emerged — Carnegie, Rockefeller, Frick, Vanderbilt and others — who amassed fortunes in steel, railroads, oil, mining and finance. The top 2% owned more than a third of the nation’s wealth. The wealth gap grew. Mark Twain famously called it “The Gilded Age,” a term that came to symbolize the greed, corruption and inequality hiding beneath a glittering surface.

Entertainment was booming, too. In 1870, a traveling showman named P.T. Barnum hit the road with P.T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome, a circus that evolved into Barnum & Bailey’s Circus — America’s first big three-ring spectacle.

Mark Twain published his first novel, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” in 1876. Although initially a commercial failure, the book later became one of Twain’s most beloved works and spawned a sequel, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” in 1884.

Americans were devouring “Through the Looking-Glass” by Lewis Carroll (1871) and “Around the World in Eighty Days” by Jules Verne (1872). Cheap dime novels about outlaws and frontier legends like Buffalo Bill Cody were all the rage.

While not yet America’s favorite pastime, baseball was popular by the 1870s. In 1871, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players became the first major league. In 1876, Chicago businessman William Hulbert formed the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, with teams in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Hartford and Louisville.

Another tradition kicked off in the 1870s: the Kentucky Derby. Often called “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports,” the Kentucky Derby ran its first race on May 17, 1875, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky. Founded by Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., grandson of explorer William Clark, the Derby soon became synonymous with mint juleps and ornate hats.

The 1870s didn’t solve all of America’s problems — far from it. The country abandoned Reconstruction too soon, let inequality fester and displaced Native peoples in the name of progress.

But it was also a decade of incredible momentum. America expanded, industrialized and invented at a pace few could have imagined in 1870. It was messy, complicated and often unfair, but it set the stage for the modern nation we live in today. The 1870s was a decade that transformed the United States, whether it was ready or not.