The British Advantage
Britain’s status as an island with many natural harbors allowed it to lead the world in this economic activity
What is Global Trade (or Shipping)?
Before 1750, most humans lived in these small communities where families worked shared strips of land.
What are farming villages (or Agrarian Societies)?
This was the very first industry to be transformed by machines, specifically producing cloth and fabric.
What is the Textile Industry?
Pre-industrial transportation was described as being slow, expensive, and limited by how much this animal could pull.
What is a Horse?
This is a risk-taker who organizes, manages, and invests money to start a new business venture
What is an Entrepreneur?
This term describes the overall transition from making goods by hand on a farm to making them by machine in a factory.
What is Industrialization (or the Industrial Revolution)?
This practice involves changing which plants are grown in a field each year to restore the soil’s health without leaving it empty.
What is Crop Rotation?
Before factories, merchants used this system where families produced goods piece-by-piece in their own homes.
What was the Cottage Industry?
This invention solved the "massive problem" of moving heavy goods like coal and iron from inland mines to coastal ports.
What is the Locomotive (or the Railroad)?
These were the crowded, unsanitary, and often dangerous apartment buildings where the working class lived.
What are Tenements?
To build and power new machinery, Britain relied on its massive underground deposits of iron ore and this combustible rock.
What is Coal?
This legal movement turned "common" public land into fenced-off private property, forcing many peasants to move to cities.
What was the Enclosure Movement?
Early factories had to be built next to these because the large machines were originally powered by water wheels.
What are Rivers?
Because trains needed to arrive and depart at specific moments, the railroad led to the creation of this "Standardized" system across Britain.
What is Standardized Time?
This "hands-off" economic policy argues that the government should not interfere with business owners or working conditions.
What is Laissez-Faire?
While the rest of Europe was torn apart by the Napoleonic Wars, Britain’s island geography provided this "pillar," ensuring that business property and factories were never destroyed by invading armies.
What is Political Stability?
This specific invention allowed for "high-efficiency" farming, meaning fewer workers could produce much more food.
What is the Seed Drill?
This mathematical instrument maker improved the steam engine, making it fast and efficient enough to power factories anywhere.
Who was James Watt?
Edward Jenner’s 1796 discovery of this helped the population explode by preventing a deadly disease.
What is the Smallpox Vaccine?
Workers joined these associations to use "collective bargaining" to fight for better pay and safer environments.
What are Unions?
Founded in 1660, this group allowed scientists and inventors to meet and share ideas, giving Britain a head start in technology.
What was the Royal Society?
In an agrarian society, work was governed by the sun and the seasons; however, in the factory system, work was governed by this.
What is the Clock (or the Factory Whistle/Standardized Time)?
This acronym (C.S.I.) represents the three critical elements of power that allowed the factory system to expand.
What is Coal, Steam, and Iron?
This term describes the rapid movement of people from the countryside into the cities to find work in factories.
What is Urbanization?
Fearing for their jobs, this group of angry workers famously destroyed factory machinery in protest.
Who were the Luddites?