Industrial Revolution

  • Edmund Cartwright

    English inventor, and member of the Anglican clergy. Cartwright invented the power loom which significantly increased the efficiency of textile production.https://www.biographyonline.net/people/famous/industrial-revolution.html
  • Sir Humphrey Davy

    English chemist and inventor. He invented the Davy lamp used by miners to help detect gas and improve safety.
  • Robert Owens

    Welsh social reformer who attempted to build a Utopian socialist and co-operative movement.
  • Joseph Locke

    English civil engineer. Locke was an important railway pioneer. He built the Grand Junction Railway which connected the Liverpool railway to Crewe and Birmingham.
  • George Stephenson

    Mechanical engineer, who developed the steam engine for use in trains. He was a key figure in building the 25 mile Stockton and Darlington railway.
  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel

    Brunel was at the heart of many of the key building projects of the British industrial revolution. He built the Great Western Railway from Bristol to London and also developed powerful steamships.
  • Karl Marx

    Marx felt it was a historical inevitability that the oppressed workers of industrial states would eventually revolt against the capitalist class.
  • Friedrich Engels

    German social scientist and political activi st. His work, The Condition of the Working Class in England, explained the dire conditions of the workers caught up in the industrial revolution. In 1848, he co-authored the ‘Communist Manifesto’ with Karl Marx.
  • Sir Henry Bessemer

    Bessemer’s greatest contribution was to the mass production of steel, which was a key component of the second wave of the industrial revolution.
  • Charles Dickens

    English writer and social critic. Dickens lived through the industrial revolution and became a harsh critic of its worst excesses.
  • John D. Rockefeller

    Rockefeller became one of the richest persons in the world through his dominance of the oil and railroad industries. He became a generous philanthropist giving money to his church, education, medical science, and public health.
  • Thomas Edison

    American inventor who filed over 1,000 patents. He developed and innovated a wide range of products from the electric light bulb to the phonograph and motion picture camera.
  • Nikola Tesla

    American Physicist who invented fluorescent lighting, the Tesla coil, the induction motor, 3-phase electricity and AC electricity.
  • Andrew Carnegie

    Born in Scotland to poor parents, Carnegie moved to America where he became very wealthy through dominating the US steel industry.
  • Rudolf Diesel

    German inventor of the Diesel engine. Diesel sought to build an engine that had much greater efficiency. This led him to develop a diesel-powered combustion engine.