Industrial Revolution Key Term Review 20-21

Communism

According to Marx, socialism would replace capitalism, and, then, it would later be replaced by this final stage of economic development in which all class distinctions would end.

Cottage Industry

Also known as the putting-out system, a system in which merchants provided raw cotton to women who spun it into finished cloth in their own homes. It was hard work and the pay was low, but it gave women weavers some independence.

Company Rule

During the period of this system - British East India company control over parts of the Indian subcontinent from 1757 to 1858 - steep British tariffs led to the decline of India's ability to mine and work metals.

Karl Marx

He was a German scholar and writer who argued for socialism in which the workers would take control of the means of production and share the wealth they created fairly.

Eli Whitney

In 1798, this inventor created a system of interchangeable parts to help in the manufacturing of firearms for the U.S. military. In this system, if a particular component of a machine were to break, the broken component could easily be replaced with a new, identical part.

Assembly Line

In the early 20th century, Henry Ford expanded the concept of the division of labor, developing this to move parts for the manufacturing of his Model T automobiles.

Stockholders

Individuals who buy partial ownership directly from the company when it is formed or later through a stock market. They might receive sums of money, known as dividends, from a corporation when it makes a profit.

Steam Engine

James Watt improved on this machine. It provided an inexpensive way to harness coal power to create a specific kind of energy for machinery in textile factories and soon to be power for trains.

Consumerism

This is defined as a cultural effect that encourages the buying of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. Consumption needed to keep up with production, so producers began to advertise heavily, particularly to the middle-class whose members had some disposable income, money that could be spent on nonessential goods.

Factory System

Richard Arkwright is considered the father of this as he is credited with the creation of the water frame which moved industry from the home to factories big enough to house the machines.

Monopoly

Some corporations became so powerful they took control of a specific business and eliminated all competition. Examples of this practice include the Krupp Corporation of Essen, Germany and John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company in New York.

white-collar

This new group consisted of factory and office managers, small business owners, and professionals and were literate and considered themselves middle-class.

Second Industrial Revolution

This occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Innovations of the first one were in textiles, steam power, and iron. The developments of this one were in steel, chemicals, precision machinery, and electronics.

Industrial Revolution

The name of the new age in which new technologies and ideas reshaped societies and led to a dramatic change in society and economies. It's characterized by a rigid structure of early factory work and mechanization of production.

Labor Unions

These are organizations of workers that advocated for the right to bargain with employers and put the resulting agreements in a contract.

Zaibatsu

These are powerful Japanese family business organizations like the conglomerates in the United States. They typically bought new businesses once they proved themselves by making profits.

Tenements

These shoddily constructed buildings were often owned by factory owners and were often located in slums where industrial by-products such as polluted water supplies and open sewers were common.

Meiji Restoration

This 1868 event culminated in the overthrow of the shogun and the returning of power back to the emperor of Japan. It began when Japanese reformers, fearful of the arrival of the U.S., argued that the country should adopt enough Western technology and methods so it could protect its traditional culture.

Mass production

This business strategy made goods cheaper, more abundant, and more easily accessible to a greater number of people.

Corporations

This differs from a sole proprietorship and a partnership as forms of business as it is a more flexible structure for large-scale economic activity. It replaced the traditional system of a single entrepreneur engaging in high-risk business endeavors with a system of larger companies, collectively engaging in lower-risk efforts. By spreading risk, investments became much safer and more effective.

John Stuart Mill

This economist criticized laissez-faire capitalism and championed legal reforms to allow labor unions, limit child labor, and ensure safe working conditions in factories. His philosophy was called utilitarianism.

Enclosure Movement

This ended the practice of English towns allowing farmers to cultivate land or tend sheep on government property known as "the commons." Now the government fenced off the commons to give exclusive use of it to people who paid for the privilege or who purchased the land. Many farmers became landless and destitute and were forced to seek employment in factories in the cities.

Bourgeoisie

This group included the middle-class and investors who owned machinery and factories where workers produced goods.

proletariat

This group was essentially the working class, working in factories and mines, often for little compensation. Marx believed they were exploited by the bourgeoisie for the sake of higher profit.

Utilitarianism

This idea stemmed from Mill's reform efforts and sought "the greatest good for the greatest number of people." Followers of this idea wanted to address the growing problems they saw with capitalism and considered themselves moderate, rational advocates of gradual reform.

Specialization of labor

This replaced the need for a skilled laborer to craft every component of a product. Here workers in a factory could focus on one type of task and that task only, no skill required, thus creating a division of labor among each process in the manufacturing of a product.

Trans-Siberian Railroad

This stretched from Moscow to the Pacific Ocean, allowing Russia to trade easily with countries in East Asia, such as China and Japan. Russia's coal, iron and steel industries developed along with this. By 1900, Russia had become the 4th largest producer of steel in the world.

Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC)

This transnational company emerged in the 19th century. It was a British-owned business that opened in its colony in East Asia in 1865. Its business focus was on finance, corporate investments, and global banking.

Unilever Corporation

This transnational company was a British and Dutch venture, focused on household goods - most famously, soap. By 1890, it had soap factories in Australia, Switzerland, the United States, and beyond. It sourced palm oil for its soaps first from British West Africa and later the Belgian Congo, where it operated huge plantations.

Spinning Jenny

This was invented by James Hargreaves in the 1760s and allowed a weaver to spin more than one thread at a time. This combined with the water frame, doomed household textile cottage industries as the textile production was moved to factories big enough to hold these bulky machines.