Industrial Revolution Vocabulary (test tuesday 9/1/26)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key inventions, key historical figures, economic systems, business terms, and social conditions during the Industrial Revolution.

Enclosure Movement

The movement that caused small farmers to move from rural areas into the cities.

Entrepreneurs

Ambitious British people in the middle and upper classes who organized and managed the country's growing industries and took financial risks.

Eli Whitney

Inventor who created the cotton gin and introduced interchangeable parts.

John Kay

Inventor who created the flying shuttle for the textile industry.

Edmund Cartwright

Inventor who created the power loom for the textile industry.

Factory System

An organized method of production that brought workers and machines together under the control of managers.

James Watt

Inventor who invented the steam engine.

Henry Cort

Pioneer who introduced a method of using coal to produce higher quality iron.

Bessemer Process

A method created by William Kelley and Henry Bessemer to use iron to make steel.

Robert Fulton

Inventor who invented the steamboat.

Samuel Slater

Person who smuggled industrial ideas from Great Britain to the United States.

Capitalism

An economic system where individuals own the means of production.

Mass Production

The process of producing a lot of an identical good.

Interchangeable Parts

Man-made parts that are exactly alike and easy to assemble.

Frederick Taylor

Pioneer who developed scientific management, which led to the division of labor and the assembly line.

Division of Labor

A system of production where each person has a specific job to do.

Assembly Line

A line of factory workers that stand in front of a conveyor belt and make a product as it goes by.

Henry Ford

Industrialist who developed the assembly line for making cars.

Socialism

An economic system where workers own the means of production.

Communism

An economic system where the government owns the means of production.

Domestic System

A labor system in which the entire family worked to produce goods in the home.

Partnership

A business organization where two people combine their money to form a business.

Corporation

A company owned by stockholders who buy shares in the business.

Business Cycle

Alternating periods of business expansion and decline.

Depression

The lowest point of a business cycle.

Samuel Morse

Inventor of the telegraph, which used Morse code.

Alexander Graham Bell

Inventor who invented the telephone.

Thomas Edison

Inventor who invented the lightbulb and the phonograph (record player).

Wright Brothers

Inventors who created the first motorized airplane.

Tenements

Crowded, poorly constructed apartment buildings where the working class lived.