US History (Texas) Ch. 12 The North

Lowell System

The use of water powered textile mills that employed young unmarried women in the 1800's

technology

the tools used to produce items or to do work

strikes

times when workers refuse to work until owners improve conditions

Telegraph

A device for rapid, long-distance transmission of information over an electric wire. It was introduced in England and North America in the 1830s and 1840s.

Transportation Revolution

A period of rapid growth in the speed and convenience of travel because of new methods of transportation.

Industrial Revolution

A series of improvements in industrial technology that transformed the process of manufacturing goods.

John Deere

American blacksmith that was responsible for inventing the steel plow. This new plow was much stronger than the old iron version; therefore, it made plowing farmland in the west easier, making expansion faster.

Francis Cabot Lowell

American industrialist who developed the Lowell system, a mill system that included looms that could both weave thread and spin cloth. He hired young women to live and work in his mill

Robert Fulton

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

Peter Cooper

American ironworks manufacturer who designed and built Tom Thumb, the first American locomotive

Richard Arkwright

English inventor and entrepreneur who became the wealthiest and most successful textile manufacturer of the first Industrial Revolution. He invented the water frame, a machine that, with minimal human supervision, could spin several threads at once.

Sarah G. Bagley

Founded the Lowell Female Labor Reform Organization Petitioned for 10 hour work days

Samuel Slater

He was a British mechanic that moved to America and in 1791 invented the first American machine for spinning cotton. He is known as "the Father of the Factory System" and he started the idea of child labor in America's factories.

interchangeable parts

Identical pieces that could be assembled quickly by unskilled workers, uniform pieces that can be made in large quantities to replace other identical pieces

Isaac Singer

Improved the sewing machine

Cyrus McCormick

Irish-American inventor that developed the mechanical reaper. The reaper replaced scythes as the preferred method of cutting crops for harvest, and it was much more efficient and much quicker. The invention helped the agricultural growth of America.

mass production

Process of making large quantities of a product quickly and cheaply

Rhode Island system

Slater's strategy of hiring families and dividing factory work into simple tasks

textiles

The first industry to be industrialized in the 18th century. Cloth items

Eli Whitney

United States inventor of the mechanical cotton gin (1765-1825)

Morse Code

a system of dots and dashes that represent the alphabet

Trade unions

groups that tried to improve pay and working conditions

Samuel F.B. Morse

invented the telegraph

Clermont

steamboat built in 1807 by Robert Fulton; first steamboat to be commercially successful in American waters

Gibbons vs Ogden

supreme court decision that ruled that the constitution gave control of interstate commerce to the U.S. Congress, not the individual states through which a route passed.