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Mutual-aid Societies
In the mid-18th century, as the Industrial Revolution hastened the growth of British towns, the friendly society system became well established. Sometimes they were called fraternal societies, mutual aid societies, or benefit clubs. It provides benefits or other help to its members when they are affected by things such as death, sickness, disability, old age, or unemployment. -
James Watt
James Watt was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and a chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's steam engine. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1785. Watt spent long periods in Cornwall, where he installed and supervised numerous pumping engines for the copper and tin mines, the managers of which wanted to reduce fuel costs. -
Spinning Jenny
The spinning jenny is a multi-spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves. James Hargreaves' spinning jenny was said to have been designed after he saw his wife's spinning wheel knocked over and saw the spindle continue to spin. The spinning jenny used eight different spindles that were powered by a single wheel. -
George Stephenson
George Stephenson was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement. In 1814, Stephenson constructed his first locomotive, 'Blucher', for hauling coal at Killingworth Colliery near Newcastle. In 1815, he invented a safety lamp for use in coal mines, nicknamed the 'Geordie'. -
Cotton Gin
A machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. It was invented by Eli Whitney. For the South, it meant that cotton could be produced plentifully and cheaply for domestic use and for export, and by the mid-19th century, cotton was America’s leading export. For the North, especially New England, cotton’s rise meant a steady supply of raw materials for its textile mills. -
Automobile
The automobile was first invented and perfected in Germany and France in the late 1800s. Henry Ford innovated mass-production techniques that became standard, and Ford, General Motors and Chrysler emerged as the “Big Three” auto companies by the 1920s.Although the automobile was to have its greatest social and economic impact in the United States, it was initially perfected in Germany and France toward the end of the nineteenth century. -
Charles Darwin
Charles was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered a foundational concept in science. Darwin's theory of evolution, also called Darwinism, can be further divided into 5 parts: "evolution as such", common descent, gradualism, population speciation, and natural selection. -
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman who has been described as America's greatest inventor. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures.By January 1879, at his laboratory, Edison had built his first high resistance, incandescent electric light. It worked by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb, which delayed the filament from melting. -
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility in maximizing happiness or pleasure as summed among all people. It is, then, the total utility of individuals which is important here, the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. It was founded by Jeremy Bentham. -
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is any of various theories of society which emerged in the United Kingdom, North America, and Western Europe in the 1870s, claiming to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics.t's the theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals. -
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.The Social Gospel Movement has been described as "the most distinctive American contribution to world Christianity." -
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo was an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, known for his pioneering work on long-distance radio transmission, development of Marconi's law, and a radio telegraph system. In 1901, he sent wireless signals across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving the dominant belief of Earth's curvature affecting transmission. He founded the London-based Marconi Telegraph Company in 1899. -
Assembly Line
Ransom Olds created and patented the assembly line in 1901. Switching to this process allowed his car manufacturing company to increase output by 500 percent in one year. An assembly line is a manufacturing process in which parts are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in sequence until the final assembly is produced. -
Airplane
The Wright brothers invented and flew the first airplane in 1903. The capabilities of and the uses for aircraft expand as designers and pilots introduce float planes, flying boats, passenger aircraft, observation platforms fitted with radios and wireless telegraphs, fighters, and bombers. As World War I approaches, aircraft have become an essential part of war and peace. -
Communism
Communism was an economic-political philosophy founded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the second half of the 19th century. Though the term "communism" can refer to specific political parties, at its core, communism is an ideology of economic equality through the elimination of private property.
