AP Euro chapter 20

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.

Irish potato famine

A famine in 1845 when the main crop of Ireland, potatoes, was destroyed by disease. Irish farmers grew other food items, such as wheat and oats, but Great Britain required them to export those items to them, leaving nothing for the Irish to live on. As a result, over 1 million Irish died of starvation or disease, while millions of others migrated to the United States.

People's Charter

A publication printed by a committee whose objectives reflected Chartists views called for voting rights for all men and voting by secret ballot

Tariffs

A tax on imported goods

Agricultural revolution

A time when new inventions such as the seed drill and the steel plow made farming easier and faster. The production of food rose dramatically.

Cholera

An acute intestinal infection caused by ingestion of contaminated water or food

Capital

An economic system based on private ownership of capital An economic system based on private property and free enterprise.

Luddites

Any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment.

Crystal Palace

Building erected in Hyde Park, London, for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Made of iron and glass, like a gigantic greenhouse, it was a symbol of the industrial age. (p. 606)

Public Health act

Created the National Board of Health, empowered to form local boards that would establish modern sanitary systems.

Trade Unions

Early labor organizations that brought together workers in the same trade, or job, to fight for better wages and working conditions

Poor Law act of 1834

Established workhouses for jobless for people to live, assumed the unemployed poor were jobless because it was their fault so they forced the poor to live in prison like homes where they were forced to work and given horrible living conditions

Great Exhibition of 1851

In 1851, the British organized the first industrial fair at London in the Crystal Palace. The fair had 100,000 exhibits that showed a wide variety of products made in the Industrial Revolution. It was a display of Britain's wealth to the world.

Joint-stock investment bank

a bank created by selling shares of stock to investors. Such banks potentially have access to much more capital than do private banks owned by one or a few individuals.