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Emigrant Aid Company

(Encyclopedia)Emigrant Aid Company, organization formed in 1854 to promote organized antislavery immigration to the Kansas territory from the Northeast. Eli Thayer conceived the plan as early as Feb., 1854, even be...

Transylvania Company

(Encyclopedia)Transylvania Company, association formed to exploit and colonize the area now comprising much of Kentucky and Tennessee. Organized first (Aug., 1774) as the Louisa Company, it was reorganized (Jan., 1...

Union

(Encyclopedia)Union, industrial township (1990 pop. 50,024), Union co., NE N.J.; settled 1749 by colonists from Connecticut, set off from Elizabethtown 1808. Steel and metal products and paint are among its various...

union, labor

(Encyclopedia)union, labor, association of workers for the purpose of improving their economic status and working conditions through collective bargaining with employers. Historically there have been two chief type...

Western Dvina

(Encyclopedia)Western Dvina: see Dvina (Western Dvina). ...

Muscovy Company

(Encyclopedia)Muscovy Company mŭsˈkəvē [key] or Russia Company, first major English joint-stock trading company. It began in 1553 as a group supporting exploration of a possible northeast passage to Asia. An ex...

Ohio Company

(Encyclopedia)Ohio Company, organization formed (1747) to extend settlements of Virginia westward. The members were mostly Virginia planters interested in land speculation and the fur trade. A royal charter (1749) ...

Western Isles

(Encyclopedia)Western Isles or Western Islands, Scotland: see Hebrides, the. ...

Virginia Company

(Encyclopedia)Virginia Company, name of two English colonizing companies, chartered by King James I in 1606. By the terms of the charter, the Virginia Company of London (see London Company) was given permission to ...

Gray, Elisha

(Encyclopedia)Gray, Elisha, 1835–1901, American inventor, b. Barnesville, Ohio. He patented many electrical devices, most of them having to do with the telegraph. His telautograph (1888) for transmitting handwrit...