The 1890s (pronounced "eighteen-nineties") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1890, and ended on December 31, 1899. In the United States, the 1890s were marked by a severe economic depression sparked by the Panic of 1893. This economic crisis would help bring about the end of the so-called "Gilded Age", and coincided with numerous industrial strikes in the industrial workforce. From 1926 the period was sometimes referred to as the "Mauve Decade", because William Henry Perkin's aniline dye (discovered in London in 1856) allowed the widespread use of that color in fashionin the late 1850s and early 1860s.