Inventors in the late nineteenth century flooded the market with new technological advances. Encouraged by Great Britain’s Industrial Revolution, and eager for economic development in the wake of the Civil War, business investors sought the latest ideas upon which they could capitalize, both to transform the…

These inventions were a key piece of the massive shift towards industrialization that followed. For both families and businesses, these inventions eventually represented a fundamental change in their way of life.

Haymarket affair — the rally and subsequent riot in which several policemen were killed when a bomb was thrown at a peaceful workers rights rally in Chicago in 1886. holding company — a central corporate entity that controls the operations of multiple companies by holding the majority of stock for each enterprise. Molly Maguires — a secret organization made up of Pennsylvania coal miners, named for the famous Irish patriot, which worked through a series of scare tactics to bring the plight of the miners to…. robber baron — a negative term for the big businessmen who made their fortunes in the massive railroad boom of the late nineteenth century.