Industrial Revolution Vocab

Assembly Line

An assembly line is a manufacturing process (most of the time called a progressive assembly) in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in sequence until the final assembly is produced.

Capital

An economic and political system characterized by a free market for goods and services and private control of production and consumption. (Compare socialism and communism.)

Division of Labor

Dividing a job into many specialized parts, with a single worker or a few workers assigned to each part. Division of labor is important to mass production.

Henry Cort

Henry Cort was an English ironmaster. During the Industrial Revolution in England, Cort began refining iron from pig iron to wrought iron using innovative production systems. In 1783 he patented the puddling process for refining iron ore.

Henry Ford

Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and the sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production.

Rudolf Diesal

Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel was a German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the diesel engine and his mysterious death. Diesel was the subject of the 1942 film Diesel

Samuel Morse

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was an American painter and inventor. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs

Henry Bessemer

Sir Henry Bessemer was an English inventor, whose steelmaking process would become the most important technique for making steel in the nineteenth century. He also established the town of Sheffield as a major industrial centre.

Domestic System

The domestic system, which was also known as the putting-out system, was a widespread production system in 17th-century Western Europe. Merchants and employers "put out" materials to rural producers that usually worked at creating the finished product at home.

Enclosure Movement

The enclosure movement was this: wealthy farmers bought land from small farmers, then benefited from economies of scale in farming huge tracts of land. The enclosure movement led to improved crop production, such as the rotation of

Factory System

The factory system was first adopted in Britain at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century and later spread around the world. ... The main characteristic of the factory system is the use of machinery, originally powered by water or steam and later by electricity.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman, who has been described as America's greatest inventor.

Partnership

a business or firm owned and run by two or more partners.

Corporation

a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.

Business Cycle

a cycle or series of cycles of economic expansion and contraction.

Depression

a long and severe recession in an economy or market.

Labor Union

an organized association of workers, often in a trade or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests.

Entrepreneur

person who assumes the organization, management, and risks of a business enterprise.

Wright Brothers

were two American brothers, inventors, and aviation pioneers who are generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful airplane.