Industrial Revolution
The rapid development of industry that occurred in Britain in the late 18th and 19th centuries, brought about by the introduction of machinery. It was characterized by the use of steam power, the growth of factories, and the mass production of manufacture
Agricultural Revolution
The application of new agricultural techniques that allowed for a large increase in productivity in the eighteenth century.
cotton industry
The development of the flying shuttle had sped the process of weaving on a loom, enabling weavers to double their output.
canals
Came into being because the Industrial Revolution (which began in Britain during the mid-18th century) demanded an economic and reliable way to transport goods and commodities in large quantities.
Richard Arkwright's water frame
Machine, powered by water or horse, and Samuel Crompton's so-called mule, which combined aspects of the water frame and the spinning jenny, increased yarn production even more.
James Hargreaves' spinning jenny
A multi-spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution.
Samuel Crompton's mule
a machine which spun yarn suitable for use in the manufacture of muslin, it was known as the muslin wheel or the Hall i' th' Wood Wheel.
Hand-loom weavers
early power looms were grossly inefficient, enabling home-based hand-loom weavers to continue to prosper. After 1820, they were gradually replaced by the new machines.
The cottage system
a concept of workers would buy raw materials from merchants and bring it back to their home where they would produce a specific item. Since items were produced all by hand, goods were made slow and the workers productivity was very low.
Coal and coke
at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the basic process of producing iron had changed little since the Middle Ages and still depended heavily on charcoal. New methods of smelting iron ore to produce cast iron were devised, based on the use of coke t
James Watt and the rotary engine
in 1782, Watt expanded the possibilities of the steam engine when he developed a rotary engine that could turn a shaft and this drive machinery. Because steam engines were fired by coal, they did not need to be located near rivers; entrepreneurs now had g
Henry Cort
he developed a process called puddling that produce a better quality of iron using coke.
Puddling
a process in which coke was used to burn away impurities in pig iron (the product of smelting iron ore with coke) to produce an iron of high quality called wrought iron.
Richard Trevithick
he pioneered the first steam-powered locomotive on an industrial rail line in southern Wales.
George Stephenson's Rocket
the Rocket was used on the first public railway line extending 32 miles from Liverpool to Manchester. Rocket sped along at 16 miles per hour. Within twenty years, locomotives had reached 50 miles per hour, an incredible speed to contemporary passengers.
Railroads
the railways were small handcarts filled with coal were pushed along parallel wooden rails. By 1700, some entrepreneurs began to replace wooden rails with cast-iron rails. The development of the steam engine led to a radical transformation of the railways
The factory
the factory became the chief means of organizing labor for the new machines.
Factory discipline
workers were forced to work regular hours and in shifts to keep the machines producing at a steady pace for maximum output. Factory owners would accustom employees to working regular, unvarying hours during which they performed a set number of tasks over
Great Exhibition of 1851
the Great Exhibition displayed Britain's wealth to the world; it was a gigantic demonstration of British success.
The Crystal Palace
an enormous structure made entirely of glass and iron. Covering 19 acres, the Crystal Palace contained 100,000 exhibits that displayed the wide variety of products created by the Industrial Revolution.
Tariffs
duties (taxes) imposed on imported goods, usually to raise revenue and to discourage imports and protect domestic industries.
Joint-stock companies
a company or association that raises capital by selling shares to individuals who receive dividends on their investment while a board of directors runs the company.
Industrial factory
as the workplace shifted from the artisan's shop and the peasant's cottage to the factory, the latter was not viewed as just a larger work unit. Employers hired workers who no longer owned the means of production but were simply paid wages to run the mach
Pre-industrial workers
preindustrial workers were not accustomed to a timed format. Agricultural laborers had always kept irregular hours; hectic work at harvest time might be followed by weeks of inactivity.
The American system
the Harpers Ferry arsenal, for example, built muskets with interchangeable parts. Because all the individual parts of the muskets were identical, the final product could be put together quickly and easily; this enabled Americans to avoid the more costly s
Steamboats
the steamboat facilitated transportation on the Great Lakes, Atlantic coastal waters, and rivers. It was especially important to the Mississippi valley.
India's cotton cloth production
in the eighteenth century, India had been one of the world's greatest exporters of cotton cloth produced by hand labor. In the first half of the nineteenth century, much of India fell under the control of the British East India Company. With British contr
Ireland and the potato
the cultivation of the potato gave Irish peasants a basic staple that enabled them to survive and even expand in numbers. As only an acre or two of potatoes was sufficient to feed a family, Irish men and women married earlier than elsewhere and started ha
The Great Famine
In the summer of 1845, the potato crop in Ireland was struck by blight due to a fungus that turned the potatoes black. the Great Famine decimated the Irish population. More than a million died of starvation and disease, and almost 2 million emigrated to t
Suburbs
the outer ring of the city, where people could have individual houses and gardens.
Britain's Poor Law Commission
the investigators were often struck by the physically and morally debilitating effects of urban industrial life on the poor. They observed, for example, that young working-class men were considerably shorter and scrawnier than the sons of middle-class fam
Edwin Chadwick
became obsessed with eliminating the poverty and squalor of the metropolitan areas. He's a secretary of the Poor Law Commission and initiated a passionate search for detailed facts about the living conditions of the working classes. He was advocating a sy
Cholera
a serious and often deadly disease commonly spread by contaminated water; a major problem in nineteenth-century European cities before sewerage systems were installed.
Bourgeoisie
middle class. Originally, the bourgeois was the burgher or town dweller, active as a merchant, official, artisan, lawyer, or scholar, who enjoyed a special set of rights from the charter of the town. As wealthy townspeople bought land, the original meanin
New elites
new industrial entrepreneurs who gained much money from the Industrial Revolution's economic success. bourgeoisie bought great estates and gained respect from the public, and the wealthiest merged with the old elites.
working class
made of mixture of groups. Main groups of the urban included artisans, whose guilds were losing power with the introduction of the new factories (and as a result often did not support industrialization as it helped the competitor) and servants, who were m
child labor
used in family economies, but was exploited in the Industrial Revolution. Owners of factories appreciated them because their small size made them delicate cotton spinners and gave them the ability to crawl under machines and collect loose cotton. They als
domestic servants
women dominated this area of work, where they mainly did things that were considered "women's work". Showed clearly that the working patterns of women were not significantly changed just because of their large scale employment rates in factories.
trade unions
an association of workers in the same trade, formed to help members secure better wages, benefits, and working conditions.
Robert Owen
Founder of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union in 1834 which tried to organize a general (or nation-wide) strike to achieve an 8-hour workday. Lack of support caused its end within a year.
the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union
union created by Robert Owen used to coordinate a strike for the return of the eight hour work day. Lack of real working-class support led to the union's complete collapse, and the union later became trade unions for individual crafts.
the Amalgamated Society of Engineers
The largest and most successful trade union which provided generous unemployment benefits in return for a small weekly payment.
Luddites
Artisans who attacked machines in England in 1812 to protest the industrial revolution.
Chartism and the People's Charter
Term for the British movement between 1838 and 1848 of workers to get Parliament to sign the People's Charter which would extend political rights to the working man.
the London Working Men's Association
The charter demanded universal male suffrage, payment for members of Parliament, the elimination of property qualifications for members of Parliament, and annual sessions of Parliament.
factory acts
British law designed to improve factory conditions and reduce child labor.
ten hours act of 1847
1847 British law that reduced the workday for 13-18 year olds.
Coal Mines Act of 1842
1842 British law that eliminated the employment of children under 10 and all women in mines.
the Poor Law of 1834
The new Poor Law ensured that the poor were housed in workhouses, clothed and fed. Children who entered the workhouse would receive some schooling. In return for this care, all workhouse paupers would have to work for several hours each day.
the workhouse
Workhouses were where poor people who had no job or home lived. They earned their keep by doing jobs in the workhouse. Also in the workhouses were orphaned and abandoned children, the physically and mentally sick, the disabled, the elderly and unmarried m