Chapter 20 & 21 Flashcards
Industrial Revolution
A term first coined in 1799 to describe the burst of major inventions and economic expansion that
began in Britain in the late eighteenth century.
spinning jenny
A simple, inexpensive, hand-powered spinning machine created by James Hargreaves in 1765.
water frame
A spinning machine created by Richard Arkwright that had a capacity of several hundred spindles and
used waterpower; it therefore required a larger and more specialized mill — a factory.
steam engines
A breakthrough invention by Thomas Savery in 1698 and Thomas Newcomen in 1705 that burned coal
to produce steam, which was then used to operate a pump; the early models were superseded by James
Watt’s more efficient steam engine, patented in 1769.
Rocket
The name given to George Stephenson’s effective locomotive that was first tested in 1829 on the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway at 35 miles per hour.
Crystal Palace
The location of the Great Exhibition in 1851 in London; an architectural masterpiece made entirely of
glass and iron.
iron law of wages
Theory proposed by English economist David Ricardo suggesting that the pressure of population growth
prevents wages from rising above the subsistence level.
tariff protection
A government’s way of supporting and aiding its own economy by laying high taxes on imported goods
from other countries, as when the French responded to cheaper British goods flooding their country by
imposing high tariffs on some imported products.
Factory Acts
English laws passed from 1802 to 1833 that limited the workday of child laborers and set minimum
hygiene and safety requirements.
separate spheres
A gender division of labor with the wife at home as mother and homemaker and the husband as wage
earner.
Mines Act of 1842
English law prohibiting underground work for all women and girls as well as for boys under ten.
Luddites
Group of handicraft workers who attacked factories in northern England in 1811 and later, smashing the
new machines that they believed were putting them out of work.
class-consciousness
Awareness of belonging to a distinct social and economic class whose interests might conflict with those
of other classes.
Combination Acts
British laws passed in 1799 that outlawed unions and strikes, favoring capitalist business people over
skilled artisans. Bitterly resented and widely disregarded by many craft guilds, the acts were repealed by
Parliament in 1824.
Congress of Vienna
A meeting of the Quadruple Alliance (Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Great Britain), restoration France, and
smaller European states to fashion a general peace settlement that began after the defeat of Napoleon’s
France in 1814.