World Studies Chapter 12 BJU 5th ed

Industrial Revolution

A major change (late 1700s–1800s) when people began using machines and steam power to produce goods faster, leading to factory work, growing cities, and new ways of transportation and business.

Richard Arkwright

An English inventor and businessman who helped start the factory system by developing water-powered spinning machines and opening early textile factories.

Henry Cort

An English inventor who improved iron production with the “puddling” and “rolling” processes, making stronger, cheaper iron for tools, machines, and railroads.

Jethro Tull

An English farmer who invented the seed drill and promoted better farming methods, helping increase food production before the Industrial Revolution.

Andrew Meikle

A Scottish inventor who developed an early threshing machine that separated grain from stalks much faster than hand labor.

John Kay

An English inventor who created the flying shuttle, which sped up weaving and increased cloth production.

James Hargreaves

An English inventor who created the spinning jenny, allowing one worker to spin many threads at the same time.

James Watt

A Scottish inventor who greatly improved the steam engine, making it powerful and efficient enough to run factory machines and transportation.

George Stephenson

An English engineer who built successful steam locomotives and helped develop railroads for moving people and goods quickly.

Eli Whitney

An American inventor best known for the cotton gin and for promoting interchangeable parts, which helped speed up manufacturing.

Cyrus McCormick

An American inventor who created the mechanical reaping machine, making harvesting grain much faster and cheaper.

Luddites

English workers who destroyed factory machines because they feared losing jobs and wages to new technology.

John Wesley

An English preacher who founded Methodism and emphasized personal conversion, holy living, and active Christian service.

George Whitefield

A powerful preacher in Great Britain and America whose preaching helped spark the Great Awakening.

John Newton

A former slave-ship captain who became a Christian pastor and wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” later opposing the slave trade.

William Wilberforce

A British Christian leader and member of Parliament who worked for many years to end the British slave trade and later slavery in the British Empire.

William Lloyd Garrison

An American abolitionist who demanded immediate emancipation and published an antislavery newspaper called The Liberator.

Frederick Douglass

A formerly enslaved man who became a leading abolitionist speaker and writer, showing the cruelty of slavery through his life story.

entrepreneurs

People who start and organize businesses, take financial risks, and try to earn profit by producing goods or services.

patent

A government grant that gives an inventor the legal right to control and profit from an invention for a set period of time.

capital

Money or other resources (tools, machines, buildings) used to start and run a business.

seed drill

A machine that plants seeds in straight rows at a set depth, improving crop growth and reducing wasted seed.

threshing machine

A machine that separates grain (like wheat) from the stalks and husks much faster than hand threshing.

flying shuttle

A weaving invention that let one worker weave cloth faster by moving the shuttle quickly back and forth across the loom.

spinning jenny

A spinning machine that allowed one person to spin multiple threads at once, greatly increasing yarn production.

steam engine

A machine powered by steam pressure that provided reliable mechanical energy for factories, mines, trains, and ships.

cottage industries

A system where people made goods by hand in their homes (often for merchants) instead of working in factories.

factories

Large workplaces where machines and workers produce goods in one location, usually using power-driven equipment.

cotton gin

A machine that quickly removed seeds from cotton fiber, making cotton processing much faster and increasing cotton production.

reaping machine

A machine that cut grain crops efficiently, reducing the number of workers needed at harvest time.

trade unions

Organizations of workers formed to protect members’ wages, hours, and working conditions through collective action.

Chartism

A British working-class movement that demanded political reforms (like broader voting rights) through the “People’s Charter.”

electoral district

A geographic area whose voters choose a representative for a legislature or government body.

Methodist

A member of the Methodist movement/church, emphasizing salvation through faith in Christ, disciplined Christian living, and evangelism.

Abolition

The movement to end slavery and the slave trade.

Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade

A British reform group (founded in 1787) that organized campaigns, petitions, and evidence to help end the British slave trade.