AMERICAN HISTORY VOCAB

vocab 10/26

Industrial Revolution

The transition from manual production to machine-powered factory production that occurred in England in the late 18th century and brought significant changes to the economy, society, and technology.

Capital

Money invested in a business venture.

Capitalist

A person who invests in a business with the goal of making a profit.

Supply

The amount of goods or resources available in the market to sell.

Scarcity

A shortage or insufficient supply of goods or resources.

Interchangeable parts

Identical, machine-made parts used in tools or instruments.

Lowell girls

Young women who worked in the Lowell mills in Massachusetts during the Industrial Revolution.

Urbanization

The movement of population from farms to cities.

Artisan

A skilled worker.

Trade union

An association of workers in a specific trade formed to improve wages and working conditions.

Strike

The refusal by workers to do their jobs until their demands are met.

Famine

A severe food shortage.

Nativist

An American who sought to limit immigration and preserve the country for native-born white Protestants.

Know-Nothing Party

A political party of the 1850s that was anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant.

Discrimination

A policy or practice that denies equal rights to certain groups of people.

Cultivate

To prepare and work soil for planting and growing crops.

Boom

A period of rapid economic growth.

"Cottonocracy"

A group among the upper class whose wealth comes from the cotton trade.

Slave code

Laws that controlled the lives of enslaved Africans and African Americans, denying them basic rights.

Extended family

A family group that includes grandparents, parents, children, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

American Colonization Society

An organization in the early 1800s that proposed to end slavery by helping African Americans move to Africa.

Abolitionist

A person who wanted to end slavery.

The Liberator

The influential anti-slavery newspaper started by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831.

Underground Railroad

A network of abolitionists who secretly helped African Americans escape to freedom.

Civil disobedience

The refusal to obey unjust laws using non-violent means.

Social reform

An organized attempt to improve what is unjust or imperfect in society.

Second Great Awakening

A widespread religious movement in the United States in the early 1800s.

Debtor

A person who cannot pay the money they owe.

Temperance movement

The campaign against alcohol consumption.

Seneca Falls Convention

An 1848 meeting where activists called for equal rights for women, considered the birthplace of the women's rights movement.

Women's rights movement

An organized campaign to win legal, educational, employment, and other rights for women.

Hudson River School

A group of American artists based in New York who developed a unique style of landscape painting in the mid-1800s.

Transcendentalist

One of a group of New England writers and thinkers who believed that the most important truth transcended, or went beyond, human reason

Individualism

the belief in the uniqueness and important of each individual