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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 ...

Cornell, Alonzo B.

(Encyclopedia)Cornell, Alonzo B. kôrnĕlˈ [key], 1832–1904, American businessman and politician, b. Ithaca, N.Y. Cornell was a director (1868–69) and vice president (1870–76) of the Western Union Telegraph ...

North West Company

(Encyclopedia)North West Company, fur-trading organization in North America in the late 18th and early 19th cent.; it was composed of Montreal trading firms and fur traders. After 1810 the rivalry between the Nor...

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...

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...

industrial union

(Encyclopedia)industrial union, labor union composed of all the workers in a given industry, regardless of skill, craft, or occupation (as opposed to the craft union, in which all members are of one skill, such as ...

French Union

(Encyclopedia)French Union, 1946–58, political entity established by the French constitution of 1946. It comprised metropolitan France (the 90 departments of continental France and Corsica); French overseas depar...

labor union

(Encyclopedia)labor union: see union, labor.

Kalmar Union

(Encyclopedia)Kalmar Union, combination of the three crowns of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, effected at Kalmar, Sweden, by Queen Margaret I in 1397. Because the kingship was elective in all three countries, the uni...

African Union

(Encyclopedia)African Union (AU), international organization established in 2002 by the nations of the former Organization of African Unity (OAU). The AU is the successor organization to the OAU, with greater power...