Industrial Revolution Key Terms

Movement in the 18th and 19th centuries to take land that had formerly been owned in common by all members of a village and change it to privately owned land 

• urbanization

• enclosure

• free market

a person who assumes financial risk in the hope of making a profit

• entrepreneur

• consumer

• proletariat

The use of children in industry or business, especially when illegal or considered inhumane

• laissez faire

• labor union

• child labor

The group of people whose rank was between nobles and peasants, this group included people like merchants, traders, and artisans.

• upper class

• lower middle class

• middle class

• working class

A system in which the people as a whole own all property and operate all businesses, rather than private individuals. 

• communism

• socialism

• capitalism

A production method that breaks down a complex job into a series of smaller tasks. 

• assembly line

• free market

• specialized labor

The theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selections as plants and animals. Now largely discredited. 

• Natural Selection

• Social Darwanism

• communism

The money or wealth that is used to invest in a business or enterprise. 

• capital

• stock

• enterprise

The movement of people from rural area to major cities. 

• temperance movement

• tenement

• urbanization

a market (economic system) that is only regulated by the natural laws of supply and demand.

• free market

• socialism

• communism

• utilitarianism