| Term | Definition |
| Patent | A patent is a grant by the federal government giving an inventor the exclusive right to develop,use, and sell an inventions for a set period of time. |
| Entrepreneur | People who invest in a product or enterprise in order to make a profit. |
| Protective tariff | Taxes that would make imported goods cost more than those made locally. |
| Laissez faire | Police's that allowed businesses to operate under minimal government regulation. |
| Suspension bridges | Bridges with roadways suspended by steel cables. |
| Time zone | Any of the 24 longitudinal areas of the world within which same time is used. |
| Mass production | A system for turning out large numbers of products quickly and inexpensively. |
| Corporation | A group of people sharing ownership of a business. |
| Monopoly | Complete control of a product or service. |
| Cartel | Association of producers of a good or service that prices and control stocks in order to monopolize the market. |
| Horizontal integration | System of consolidating many firms in the same business |
| Trust | Companies assign their stock to a bored of trustees, who combine then into a new organization. |
| Vertical integration | System of consolidating firms involved in all steps of a product's manufacture. |
| Social Darwinism | The belief held by some in the late nineteenth century that certain nations and races were superior to others and therefore destined to rule over them. |
| Sweatshop | Small factory where employees have to work long hours under poor conditions for little pay. |
| Company town | Community whose resident rely upon one company for jobs, housing, and shopping. |
| Collective bargaining | Process in which employers negotiate with labor unions about hours, wages, and other working conditions. |
| Socialism | System or theory under which the means of production are publicly controlled and regulated rather than owed by individuals. |
| Bessemer process | Method developed in the mid-1800s for making steel for more efficiently. |
| Entrepreneur | Person who invests money in a product or business with the goal of making a profit. |
