Industrial Revolution Key Terms

Industrial Revolution

A term first coined in 1799 to describe the burst of major inventions and economic expansion that began in Britain in the late eighteenth century.

Enclosure

The act of Parliament that made it easier for landlords to put barriers around their lands. Fields were enclosed, creating a rural landscape. It created groupings into large farms and led to the loss of common land. Replaced the open-field method and put land into a more productive use. It commercialized agriculture.

spinning jenny

A simple, inexpensive, hand-powered spinning machine created by James Hargreaves in 1765

water frame

A spinning machine created by Richard Arkwright that had a capacity of several hundred spindles and used waterpower; it therefore required a larger and more specialized mill—a factory.

steam engine

A breakthrough invention by Thomas Savery in 1698 and Thomas Newcomen in 1705 that burned coal to produce steam, which was then used to operate a pump; the early models were superseded by James Watt’s more efficient _____ ______, patented in 1769.

James Watt

Scot, his model of steam engine was more efficient than previous models by Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen and was patented in 1769.

George Stephenson

Famous for his locomotive named Rocket, which was very fast for the time.

Rocket

The name given to George Stephenson’s effective locomotive that was first tested in 1829 on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway at 35 miles per hour (without a load)

“workshop of the world”

A nickname for Britain as it produced two-thirds of the world’s coal and more than half of all iron and cotton cloth.

Essay on the Principle of Population

Written by Thomas Malthus, argued that the population constantly tended to expand beyond the food available to support it which would lead to misery and starvation. The only way to stop this would be for young men and women to marry late in life, therefore limiting the growth of the population.

Thomas Malthus

Author of Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) where he talked about humans overpopulation our supply of resources.

David Ricardo

English economist, made the theory of the iron law of wages, added onto Malthus’s pessimistic view, and thought that as population grew wages would always sink to barely livable.

iron law of wages

Theory proposed by English economist David Ricardo suggesting that the pressure of population growth prevents wages from rising above the subsistence level.

tariff protection

a governments way of supporting and aiding its own economy by laying high taxes on imported goods, encourages the purchase of items produced by local industry.

Friedrich List

German journalist and thinker who supported industrialization

Zollverein

free trade zone born in Prussia that eventually included other German states in 1835, allowed goods to move between member states without tariff while creating a single tariff against other nations.