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Teamsters Union

(Encyclopedia)Teamsters Union, U.S. labor union formed in 1903 by the amalgamation of the Team Drivers International Union and the Teamsters National Union. Its full name is the International Brotherhood of Teamste...

credit union

(Encyclopedia)credit union, cooperative, not-for-profit financial institution that makes low-interest personal loans to its members. It is usually composed of persons from the same occupational group or the same lo...

Union party

(Encyclopedia)Union party, in American history. 1 Coalition of Republicans and War Democrats in the election of 1864. Abraham Lincoln was renominated for President with Andrew Johnson, the Democratic war governor o...

Hudson's Bay Company

(Encyclopedia)Hudson's Bay Company, corporation chartered (1670) by Charles II of England for the purpose of trade and settlement in the Hudson Bay region of North America and for exploration toward the discovery o...

Protestant Union

(Encyclopedia)Protestant Union, in German history, an alliance of German Protestant leaders of cities and states, founded in 1608 for the avowed purpose of defending the lands, person, and rights of each individual...

Consumers' Union

(Encyclopedia)Consumers' Union, product testing and rating organization founded (1936) to provide consumers with information and counsel regarding major retail goods and services. Through its monthly Consumer Repor...

American Fur Company

(Encyclopedia)American Fur Company, chartered by John Jacob Astor (1763–1848) in 1808 to compete with the great fur-trading companies in Canada—the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. Astor's most ...

Russian American Company

(Encyclopedia)Russian American Company, colonial trading company, chartered by Czar Paul I in 1799. The charter granted the merchant-dominated company monopoly trading privileges in Russian America, which included ...

Western Michigan University

(Encyclopedia)Western Michigan University, at Kalamazoo, Mich.; coeducational; founded in 1903 as Western State Normal School, became accredited in 1927 as a college, gained university status in 1957. The universit...

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