The Machine Age

Henry Bessemer

(1813-1898) An English engineer who created the Bessemer process, a process of producing steel, in which impurities are removed by forcing a blast of air through molten iron.

James Hargreaves

1764, a Brit who invented the spinning jenny - hand operated, sped up spinning by forming eight threads at one time thus increasing output of yarn.

James Watt

A Scottish engineer who created the steam engine that worked faster and more efficiently than earlier engines, this man continued improving the engine, inventing a new type of governor to control steam pressure and attaching a flywheel.

Patent

A document granting an inventor sole rights to an invention

Cotton Gin

A machine for cleaning the seeds from cotton fibers, invented by Eli Whitney in 1793

Spinning Jenny

A machine that could spin several threads at once

Steam Engine

A machine that turns the energy released by burning fuel into motion. Thomas Newcomen built the first crude but workable steam engine in 1712. James Watt vastly improved his device in the 1760s and 1770s. Steam power was then applied to machinery.

Alexander Graham Bell

American inventor and educator; his interest in electrical and mechanical devices to aid people with hearing impairments led to the development and patent of the telephone

Thomas Edison

American inventor best known for inventing the electric light bulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures.

Robert Fulton

American inventor who designed the first commercially successful steamboat and the first steam warship (1765-1815)

Eli Whitney

An American inventor who developed the cotton gin. Also contributed to the concept of interchangeable parts that were exactly alike and easily assembled or exchanged

Guglielmo Marconi

An Italian pioneer who invented the radio.

Richard Arkwright

British inventor of the water frame

Division of Labor

Division of work into a number of separate tasks to be performed by different workers

John Kay

English watchmaker who invented the flying shuttle used in weaving.

Interchangeable Parts

Identical components that can be used in place of one another in manufacturing

Assembly Line

In a factory, an arrangement where a product is moved from worker to worker, with each person performing a single task in the making of the product.

Flying Shuttle

Invented by John Kay, this sped up the weaving process in 1733.

William Kelly

Inventor of the Bessemer Process, which converted iron ore into steel.

Henry Court

Made the pudding process

Edmund Cart Wright

Powered Loom

Mass Production

The manufacture of many identical products by the division of labor into many small repetitive tasks. This method was introduced into the manufacture of pottery by Josiah Wedgwood and into the spinning of cotton thread by Richard Arkwright.

Samuel Morse

United States portrait painter who patented the telegraph and developed the Morse code (1791-1872)

Open-Hearth Process

a method that used a special furnace to make many kinds of steel

Puddling

a process developed by Henry Cort where coke, derived from coal, was used to burn away impurities in pig iron (crud iron) to make high-quality iron