Industrial Revolution Crossword Puzzle

Print a criss-cross Industrial Revolution crossword on inventions, steam power, railroads, factory work and growing cities, with its answer key.

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Industrial Revolution Crossword

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Answer key: Industrial Revolution Crossword

1L2R3S4COAT5LOCOMOTIVETMLA6CTRM7FACTORYOENNANA8PDGL9COALIT10MN11TEXTILENL12STEEL

Across 5 LOCOMOTIVE · 7 FACTORY · 9 COAL · 11 TEXTILE · 12 STEEL

Down 1 LOOM · 2 RAILROAD · 3 STEAMENGINE · 4 COTTON · 6 CANAL · 8 PATENT · 10 MILL

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Spinning and Weaving 27

  • Arkwright Richard ___, Preston-born barber whose spinning patents made him a knight
  • Bobbin Reel onto which a spinning machine winds its product
  • Calico Plain cloth first brought from Calicut in India
  • Carding Combing raw fiber straight before spinning
  • Cartwright Edmund ___, Church of England minister whose 1780s invention mechanized weaving
  • Cottage ___ industry: goods made in homes with hand tools
  • Cotton Fiber grown on plantations overseas and spun in the mills of Lancashire
  • Crompton Samuel ___, Bolton man whose 1779 machine spun fine, strong thread
  • Domestic ___ system: spinning and weaving at home for a merchant, before the new machines
  • Dye Cloth coloring; mauve, the first commercial synthetic one, was found by a student of 18
  • Hargreaves James ___, Lancashire cloth worker credited with a spinner of many threads
  • Jacquard Weaving invention of 1804 that read its pattern from punched cards
  • Kay John ___, who patented a faster weaving device in 1733
  • Loom Machine that interlaces lengthwise and crosswise threads
  • Lowell Massachusetts town founded in the 1820s as a planned center for cloth making
  • Mill Works beside a fast stream, later a many-storied brick block full of spindles
  • Mule Spinning machine that joined the ideas of two earlier ones, as its animal name hints
  • Shuttle Holder that carries the cross thread from side to side in weaving
  • Slater Samuel ___, who carried British spinning know-how to Rhode Island
  • Spindle Rod that twists the fiber and holds the finished thread
  • Spinning jenny With it one worker could tend eight spools at once, later 120
  • Textile Any woven cloth; making it was the first industry to use modern production methods
  • Water frame Roller spinner patented in 1769 that needed a wheel in a stream to turn it
  • Weaver Worker who crosses threads over and under to make cloth
  • Whitney Eli ___, American who patented a seed-removing machine in 1794
  • Wool Sheep's fleece, the staple of the medieval English cloth trade
  • Yarn What a spinning machine produces

Steam, Coal and Iron 32

  • Bessemer Henry ___, who announced his air-blown converter in 1856
  • Boiler Part that could burst if the pressure rose too high
  • Boulton Matthew ___, Midlands manufacturer and business partner of the Scottish improver
  • Bridge The first major one of cast iron spans the Severn in Shropshire
  • Chimney Landmark of every works town: a brick column trailing gray
  • Coal Fuel dug from seams deep underground
  • Coke Hard gray fuel baked in ovens, which replaced charcoal in ironmaking
  • Condenser Separate chamber that turns used vapor back to water
  • Darby Abraham ___, ironmaster of Coalbrookdale who gave up charcoal in 1709
  • Davy Humphry ___, whose safety lamp of 1815 shut its flame inside a fine wire mesh
  • Dynamo Machine that turns motion into electric current
  • Edison Thomas ___, whose electric lamp with a carbon filament dates from 1879
  • Electricity Form of energy that drove the second wave of industry
  • Faraday Michael ___, who showed in 1831 how a moving magnet makes current
  • Flywheel Big spinning disk whose weight keeps a machine from jerking
  • Foundry Casting shop: iron goes in as liquid and comes out as machine parts
  • Furnace Blast ___: tall tower in which iron is smelted from its rock
  • Gas Piped fuel that lit London theaters by 1817
  • Governor Spinning-ball device that keeps a machine's speed steady
  • Horsepower Unit devised to compare a machine's output with a draft animal's
  • Interchangeable Word for parts made so alike that any one fits any machine
  • Lathe Machine tool that made standard screw threads possible
  • Mine Underground workings; draining them was the first job of the new pumps
  • Newcomen Thomas ___, Dartmouth ironmonger who built the first practical fuel-burning pump
  • Ore What miners bring up so that iron, copper or tin can be won from it
  • Piston Part that expanding vapor shoves along its cylinder
  • Puddling Henry Cort's way of making bar iron without charcoal
  • Smelting Heating rock to draw the metal out
  • Steam engine Source of power that let mills leave the riverbank for the town
  • Steel Strong alloy of iron and carbon, cheap from the 1850s
  • Waterwheel Wheel turned by a stream, the main source of power before the new machines
  • Watt James ___, Scottish improver of the 1760s whose name is now a unit of power

Canals, Railroads and Wires 30

  • Barge Long, slow boat of the inland waterways, pulled by a horse
  • Bridgewater Name of a duke and of the 1761 waterway he had dug to move the output of his pits
  • Brunel Isambard Kingdom ___, who gave his line an extra-wide track of about seven feet
  • Cable Line laid under the Atlantic in 1858 and, to last, in 1866
  • Canal Dug waterway; Britain built a network of them from the 1760s
  • Erie New York's 1825 waterway, named for a Great Lake, that linked the Hudson to the West
  • Export Product sold to another country
  • Freight Grain, timber or cloth on the move
  • Fulton Robert ___, whose steamboat went up the Hudson in 1807
  • Gauge Standard one is 4 feet 8 and a half inches
  • Lock Water staircase step: gates at both ends, a boat inside
  • Locomotive Self-moving machine on rails; early ones had names such as Puffing Billy
  • Macadam Road surface of layered crushed stone, named for a Scottish engineer
  • Morse Samuel ___, whose code of dots and dashes carried messages by wire
  • Paddle ___ wheel: turning blades that drove early steamboats
  • Port Bristol or Glasgow, for example: a city grown rich on shipping
  • Railroad Line of metal track that carried goods and passengers far faster than a horse
  • Rocket Winner of an 1829 contest for rail power, able to reach 30 miles an hour
  • Spike Golden one joined the rails across the United States in 1869
  • Station Building with platforms and a ticket office
  • Stephenson George ___, colliery engineman who built the first public inter-city line
  • Stockton Town on the Tees where a new line opened in 1825
  • Telegraph Wire messenger that the early railway companies were quick to use
  • Telephone Device for speech by wire, patented in 1876
  • Timetable Printed list of arrivals and departures, which pushed towns to keep one clock time
  • Towpath Walkway along the bank, worn by horses' hooves
  • Trevithick Richard ___, Cornish engineer whose high-pressure machine first hauled a train in 1804
  • Tunnel Way through a hill for a line that could not climb it
  • Turnpike Toll road kept up by a trust
  • Viaduct Row of tall arches that carries a line across a valley

Factories and Workers 25

  • Apprentice Learner under contract; a pauper child might be sent a long way to serve in a works
  • Artisan Craftsman whose hand skills the new machines undercut
  • Assembly ___ line: each worker adds one part as the product moves past
  • Capital Funds for buildings and machines, as opposed to land and labor
  • Chartist Supporter of the People's Charter of 1838, which asked for the vote for every man
  • Division ___ of labor: splitting a job into small tasks, as in a famous example of a pin works
  • Engels Friedrich ___, who wrote on the English working class in 1845
  • Entrepreneur Person who risks money to start a business
  • Factory Place of work that put machines and many hands under one roof
  • Luddite Machine-breaker of the years 1811 to 1816
  • Mass ___ production: making large amounts of the same standard item
  • Owen Robert ___, reformer of New Lanark who opened a school for workers' children
  • Patent Government grant of sole rights to a new device for a set time
  • Peterloo Name, echoing Waterloo, given to the 1819 charge on a crowd asking for a fairer Parliament
  • Piecework Pay by the item made, not by the hour
  • Profit What an owner keeps once workers and suppliers are paid
  • Scavenger Smallest worker, sent beneath the moving frames to gather fluff
  • Shaftesbury Earl who pushed laws limiting the work of women and children in pits and mills
  • Shift One spell of work, by day or by night
  • Smith Adam ___, author of The Wealth of Nations, 1776
  • Strike Walkout to press for better pay
  • Ten ___ Hours Act of 1847 capped the working day for women and teens in cloth mills
  • Trapper Young worker who opened and shut the doors in a pit passage
  • Union Band of workers; British law forbade such groups from 1799 to 1824
  • Wage Money paid by the day or week for work done

Cities and Reform 28

  • Birmingham Midlands city of small workshops, home of the Lunar Society
  • Cholera Waterborne disease whose 1854 outbreak in Soho was traced to one street pump
  • Colony India or Jamaica, to Britain, in the 1800s
  • Corn ___ Laws: British grain duties repealed in 1846
  • Crystal ___ Palace: iron-and-glass hall of the Great Exhibition of 1851
  • Dickens Charles ___, novelist of the industrial town in Hard Times
  • Enclosure Acts of Parliament that hedged in the commons and pushed cottagers off the land
  • Liverpool Mersey city that brought in raw fiber for the Lancashire mills
  • Malthus Thomas ___, whose 1798 essay warned that mouths can outgrow the food supply
  • Manchester City of mills called the first industrial city
  • Middle ___ class: growing group of owners, merchants and professionals
  • Migration Movement of people, here from farm to town
  • Police Force founded in 1829 by Robert Peel
  • Pollution Dirtying of air and water by wastes
  • Population Head count of a town or country; it rose as never before in this age
  • Reform Change made to right a wrong; an 1832 British act widened the vote
  • Sewer Underground drain; the Great Stink of 1858 led to a vast new system
  • Sheffield Yorkshire city famous for its cutlery
  • Slum Crowded district of poor, run-down housing
  • Smog Blend of the words smoke and fog
  • Soot Grime that coated buildings and washing lines
  • Stamp Penny Black of 1840 was the first for letters
  • Suburb Outlying district from which workers ride into town
  • Tariff Tax on things brought in from abroad
  • Tenement Building split into many cramped homes
  • Terrace Row of joined houses sharing side walls
  • Urbanization Rise in the share of people who live in towns
  • Workhouse Last refuge of the penniless, made harsh on purpose by the 1834 Poor Law

How this list was compiled: Clues written for this site for a middle school history unit, in five sets: spinning and weaving, steam, coal and iron, canals, railroads and wires, factories and workers, and cities and reform. Names, dates and meanings were checked against English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org, CC BY-SA 4.0) in October 2026. No clue was copied from a published puzzle. Licence: own work

How it works

This Industrial Revolution crossword puzzle is a vocabulary crossword for a middle school unit, on Letter or A4. Factory, Steam engine, Textile, Loom, Railroad, Coal and Patent are all in the first puzzle of 12.

Read the full guide

Five sets for the unit

Spinning and Weaving has Spinning jenny, Water frame, Mule and Jacquard. Steam, Coal and Iron has Newcomen, Condenser, Puddling and Bessemer. Canals, Railroads and Wires has Towpath, Rocket, Gauge and Telegraph. Factories and Workers has Luddite, Chartist, Piecework and Trapper. Cities and Reform has Manchester, Smog, Enclosure and Workhouse.

Britain first, then America

Most clues are British, because the changes began there; Lowell, Slater, Whitney, Fulton and the Erie waterway stand for the United States. Inventors are answered by surname, with a first name and often a date in the clue.

  • Print Factories and Workers beside a source on child labor: Trapper, Scavenger and Apprentice were jobs that children did.

Questions and answers

Is there an Industrial Revolution crossword puzzle printable with an answer key?

Yes. Every print ends with the key on a separate sheet, and the page asks for no payment and no account.

What grade is the Industrial Revolution crossword puzzle for?

Key Industrial Revolution Words suits grades 6 to 8, with answers such as Factory, Loom and Patent. The five unit sets, with their inventors and dates, also suit a high school world history course. These bands are our judgment, not a published standard.

When was the Industrial Revolution?

It began in Great Britain around 1760 and by about 1840 it had reached continental Europe and the United States. The clues here reach a little wider, from Darby's ironworks of 1709 to Edison's lamp of 1879.

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