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Business & Labor

The companies and unions that shaped the American economy.

Amazon
The online bookstore that became the everything store, founded 1994
Apple
The company that made the computer personal — and beautiful, founded 1976
Boeing
The company that built America's airliners and warplanes, founded 1916
Coca-Cola
The Atlanta soda that became a global symbol of America, 1886
General Electric
The Edison company that grew into an industrial empire, founded 1892
General Motors
The automaker founded in 1908 that overtook Ford, armed democracy in WWII, and ruled the American road
Google
The search engine that organized the web — and its advertising, founded 1998
IBM
The company that ran on data, from punch cards to the computer age
McDonald's
The San Bernardino hamburger stand that became a global system
Microsoft
The software giant that put a computer on every desk, founded 1975
Sears, Roebuck and Company
The mail-order catalog that outfitted a nation, 1893
Standard Oil
Rockefeller's oil empire — the monopoly that remade American business, 1870–1911
The American Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO)
The federation that has spoken for organized American labor since 1886
The Bell System (AT&T)
The telephone monopoly that wired America, 1877–1984
The Ford Motor Company
The company that put America on wheels, founded 1903
The Industrial Workers of the World
The radical "Wobblies" who dreamed of One Big Union, founded 1905
The Knights of Labor
The first mass American labor union, which surged in the 1880s — then collapsed almost overnight
The Pennsylvania Railroad
The "Standard Railroad of the World" and once America's largest corporation, 1846
The SEIU (Service Employees)
The service-sector union that became labor's fastest-growing giant, 1921
The Teamsters
The powerful trucking union dogged by clout and corruption, founded 1903
The United Auto Workers
The union that organized Detroit and helped build the American middle class, founded 1935
The United Mine Workers
The coal miners' union at the storm center of American labor, 1890
The Virginia Company
The joint-stock venture that founded Jamestown — and seeded corporate America
U.S. Steel
The 1901 merger that made the world's first billion-dollar corporation
Walmart
The discount retailer that became the world's largest company, founded 1962