Chapter Four
The Triumph of Industry

Terms:

Entrepreneur – People who stimulated industrial growth by backing businesses and factories by investing money (Capital) into their development. These entrepreneurs helped drive capitalism, or individually owned companies trying to make a profit off of the Law of Supply and Demand.

Protective Tariff – Government imposed tax that made imported goods more costly than those made domestically.

Laissez Faire – Government policy of no policy. Letting businesses work on the principle of Supply and Demand. Hands off policy. Little or no government regulation.

Patent – Official rights given by the government to an inventor for the exclusive right to develop, use, and sell an invention for a set period of time.

Thomas Edison – Inventor of the light bulb, ended up with over a thousand patents. The light bulb extended the amount of time in a day that people could work, and do recreational activities more easily and safer.

Bessemer Process – Process of purifying iron, creating strong lightweight steel.

Suspension Bridges – A bridge that has a roadway suspended by cables. The first of which was the Brooklyn Bridge spanning the East River in New York City. Made possible by strong steel cables produced by the Bessemer Process.

Time Zone – Delegates from 27 countries established a division of the globe into 24 different time zones. This allowed consistency in scheduling transportation systems around the world.