| Samuel Slater | Invented yarn spinning machine 1790 |
| Industrial Revolution | a time in American history between 1780 and 1850 when there was a dramatic change from making goods by hand at home to making them by machine in a factory |
| Eli Whitney | Invented the cotton gin to clean seeds from cotton in 1793 |
| Francis Cabot Lowell | Built a cloth making factory on the Charles River in Massachusetts in a town called Lowell |
| Eli Whitney | Began using machines to make interchangeable parts for muskets |
| Cyrus McCormick | Improved the horse drawn reaper which uses sharp blades to harvest grain in 1832 |
| John Deere | Invented the steel saw plow to break the plains of the West in 1837 |
| entrepreneur | a person who starts and owns a business |
| stage coach | horse drawn carriage to carry passengers, baggage and mail |
| National Road | Stone and gravel road built by the federal government from Cumberland, MD to Vandalia, IL |
| steam engine | machine that uses energy from steam for power |
| Robert Fulton | Built the first steamboat, the Clermont in 1793; he drove it up the Hudson River in 1807. |
| canal | a human built waterway |
| Erie Canal | a human built waterway to link New York City to the Great Lakes; it joins the Hudson River to Lake Erie. |
| Dewitt Clinton | governor of New York who thought of building the Erie Canal |
| investor | a person who uses money to buy or make something in order to gain a profit |
| locks | water elevators that move boats to higher or lower levels |
| Peter Cooper | a New York businessman who built a steam locomotive train or "iron horse" in 1830 |