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Richard Arkwright
The English inventor and industrialist Sir Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) developed several inventions which mechanized the making of yarn and thread for the textile industry. He also helped to create the factory system of manufacture. Richard Arkwright was born on Dec. 23, 1732, in Preston, Lancashire, England. -
James Watt
James Watt was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world. -
Corporations
A corporation is a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners. Corporations enjoy most of the rights and responsibilities that individuals possess: they can enter contracts, loan and borrow money, sue and be sued, hire employees, own assets, and pay taxes. Some refer to it as a "legal person." -
Cotton Gin
A cotton gin – meaning "cotton engine" – is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. -
Interchangeable Parts
Interchangeable parts is a basic concept of creating identical or nearly identical parts to be mass produced. These parts can then be put together to form a product. For example, cars, computers, furniture, almost all products used today, are made from interchangeable parts. -
Henry Bessemer
Sir Henry Bessemer was an English inventor, whose steel-making process would become the most important technique for making steel in the nineteenth century for almost one hundred years from 1856 to 1950. He also played a significant role in establishing the town of Sheffield as a major industrial center. -
Karl Marx
Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. Born in Trier, Germany, Marx studied law and philosophy at university. He married Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. -
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish businessman, chemist, engineer, inventor, and philanthropist. He held 355 different patents, dynamite being the most famous. The synthetic element nobelium was named after him. -
Socialism
Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management as well as the political theories and movements associated with them. Social ownership can be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity. -
Communism
Communism is a philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and the state. -
Social Gospel
The Social Gospel was a movement in Protestantism that applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labor, lack of unionization, poor schools, and the dangers of war. -
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a family of consequential ethical theories that promotes actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals. -
Social Democracy
Social democracy is a political, social and economic philosophy that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and a capitalist-oriented economy. -
Germ Theory
The germ theory of disease is the currently accepted scientific theory for many diseases. It states that microorganisms known as pathogens or "germs" can lead to disease. These small organisms, too small to see without magnification, invade humans, other animals, and other living hosts. -
Assembly line
A series of workers and machines in a factory by which a succession of identical items is progressively assembled.
