Chapter 24 Key Terms

Front 1

Industrial Revolution

Back 1

The transformation of the economy the environment and the living conditions, occurring first in England in the 18th century, that resulted from the use of steam engines, the mechanization of manufacturing in factories and innovations in transportation and communication.

Front 2

Agricultural Revolution (18th century)

Back 2

The transformation of farming that resulted in the 18th century from the spread of new crops, improvements in cultivation techniques and livestock breeding and the consolidation of small holdings into large farms from which tenants and sharecroppers were forcibly expelled.

Front 3

Mass production

Back 3

The manufacture of many identical products by the division of labor into many small repetitive tasks. This method was introduced into the manufacture of pottery by Josiah Wedgwood and into the spinning of cotton thread by Richard Arkwright

Front 4

Josiah Wedgwood

Back 4

(1730-1795) English industrialist whose pottery works were the first to produce fine-quality pottery by industrial methods.

Front 5

Division of Labor

Back 5

A manufacturing technique that breaks down a craft into many simple and repetitive tasks that can be performed by unskilled workers. Pioneered in the pottery works of Josiah Wedgwood and in other 18th century factories, it greatly increased the productivity of labor and lowered the cost of manufactured goods.

Front 6

Mechanization

Back 6

The application of machinery to manufacturing and other activities. Among the first processes to be mechanized were the spinning of cotton thread and the weaving of cloth in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth century England.

Front 7

Richard Arkwright

Back 7

English inventor and entrepreneur who became the wealthiest and most successful textile manufacturer of the early Industrial Revolution. He invented the water frame, a machine that, with minimal human supervision, could spin many strong cotton threads at once.

Front 8

Crystal Palace

Back 8

Building erected in Hyde Park, London, for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Made of iron and glass, like a gigantic greenhouse, it was a symbol of the industrial age.

Front 9

Steam Engine

Back 9

A machine that turns the energy released by burning fuel into motion. Thomas Newcomen built the first crude but workable steam engine in 1712. James Watt vastly improved his device in the 1760s and 1770s. Steam power was later applied to moving machinery in factories and to powering ships and locomotives.

Front 10

James Watt

Back 10

Scot who invented the condenser and other improvements that the steam engine a practical source of power for industry and transportation. The watt, an electrical measurement is named after him.

Front 11

Electric Telegraph

Back 11

A device for rapid, long-distance transmission of information over an electric wire. It was introduced in England and North America in the 1830s and 1840s and replaced telegraph systems that utilized visual signals such as semaphores.

Front 12

Business cycle

Back 12

Recurrent swings from economic hard times to recovery and growth, then back to hard times and a repetition of the sequence.

Front 13

Laissez faire

Back 13

The idea that government should refrain from interfering in economic affairs. The classic exposition of laissez-faire principles is Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776)

Front 14

Positivism

Back 14

A philosophy developed by the French count of Saint- Simon. Positivists believed that social and economic problems could be solved by the application of the scientific method leading to continuous progress. Their ideas became popular in France and Latin America in 19th century

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Utopian socialism

Back 15

A philosophy introduced y the Frenchman Charles Fourier in the early 19th century. Utopian socialists hoped to create humane alternatives to industrial capitalism by building self-sustaining communities whose inhabitants would work cooperatively.