Chapter 17: The Making of Industrial Society- Vocab

Question 1

Calicoes

Answer 1

Inexpensive, brightly printed textiles imported from India, which English consumers were fond of in the 17th century.

Question 2

Cartels

Answer 2

Large-scale business organizations that sought to control the supply of a product and its price in the marketplace, either through vertical or horizontal organization.

Question 3

Child labor

Answer 3

The abuse and exploitation of children, especially in industrial work. Children were forced to work from dawn until dark, were beaten, etc.

Question 4

Communist Manifesto

Answer 4

A short-spirited tract written by Marx and Engels which worked towards a radically egalitarian society. It asserted that all human history had been a struggle between social classes, and the future lay with the working class.

Question 5

Corporations

Answer 5

an association of employers and employees in a basic industry

Question 6

Crystal Palace

Answer 6

Glass and iron structure that housed an exhibition in London in 1851 to display industrial products.

Question 7

Demographic transition

Answer 7

A social change experienced by industrializing lands in the 19th century; shifting patterns of fertility and mortality.

Question 8

Eli Whitney

Answer 8

American inventor who invented the cotton gin in 1793 and developed the technique of using machine tools to produce large quantities of interchangeable parts in the making of firearms. This mass production soon became applied to the manufacturing of everything.

Question 9

Factory system

Answer 9

A system (characteristic method of production in industrial economies, where work moved to places where entrepreneurs and engineers built machinery for large-scale production) that emerged in the late 18th century when technology transformed the British textile industry.

Question 10

Flying shuttle

Answer 10

A device that speeded up the weaving process and stimulated demand for cotton thread. It was invented in 1733 by Manchester mechanic John Kay, and spurred competition among inventors for more thread-spinning devices.

Question 11

Friedrich Engels

Answer 11

1820–1895 C.E. German socialist philosopher who, with Karl Marx, founded modern communism and co-authored The Communist Manifesto (1848).

Question 12

George Stephenson

Answer 12

A self-educated Englishman who built the first steam-powered locomotive in 1815. In 1829, his Rocket won a speed contest. His engines burned a lot of coal.

Question 13

Henry Ford

Answer 13

American who improved manufacturing techniques by introducing the very efficient assembly line to automobile production in 1913 (where each worker performed a specialized task at a fixed point on the assembly line).

Question 14

James Watt

Answer 14

An instrument maker at the University of Glasgow in Scotland who developed the first general-purpose steam engine in 1765.

Question 15

Karl Marx

Answer 15

1818–1883 C.E. German philosopher and socialist revolutionary who founded, with Friedrich Engels, the modern communist movement and co-authored The Communist Manifesto (1848).

Question 16

Luddites

Answer 16

Early-nineteenth-century artisans who were opposed to new machinery and industrialization.

Question 17

Middle class

Answer 17

A class that emerged in the period of industrialization that was made of small business owners, factory managers, engineers, accountants, skilled employees of large corporations, and professions (teachers, physicians, attorneys). Much of the wealth of industrial production flowed to this class.

Question 18

Mule

Answer 18

The device of choice, invented in 1779 by Samuel Crompton, for spinning cotton thread. A worker using a steam-driven “mule” could produce 100x more thread than a worker using a manual spinning wheel.

Question 19

Power loom

Answer 19

A water-driven device that mechanized the weaving process. It was invented in 1785 by clergyman Edmund Cartwright, and had largely replaced hand weavers in the cotton industry by the 1820s.

Question 20

Second Industrial Revolution

Answer 20

A phase of rapid technological change, standardization, and mass consumption from 1870 to 1914 in areas of Europe that had already undergone industrialization. It had steel, telegraph networks, electric power lines, and telephones.

Question 21

Socialism

Answer 21

Political and economic theory of social organization based on the collective ownership of the means of production; its origins were in the early nineteenth century, and it differs from communism by a desire for slow or moderate change compared with the communist call for revolution.

Question 22

Trade unions

Answer 22

Organizations of workers that sought to eliminate abuse and improve their lives through higher wages and better working conditions. Employers and government considered them to be illegal associations that restrained trade.

Question 23

Trusts

Answer 23

Large-scale business organizations that sought to control the supply of a product and its price in the marketplace, either through vertical or horizontal organization.

Question 24

Utopian socialists

Answer 24

Movement that emerged around 1830 to establish ideal communities that would provide the foundation for an equitable society.

Question 25

Working class

Answer 25

A class which emerged in the industrialization period that was mainly made up of unskilled laborers in factories and mines. They had low wages and poor working conditions.