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Documents for "Businesses and Occupations":

• abattoir [Fr.], building for butchering. The abattoir houses facilities to slaughter animals; dress, cut and inspect meats; and refrigerate, cure, and manufacture byproducts. The largest abattoirs are those...

• accounting classification, analysis, and interpretation of the financial, or bookkeeping , records of an enterprise. The professional who supplies such services is known as an accountant. Auditing is an important...

• advertising in general, any openly sponsored offering of goods, services, or ideas through any medium of public communication. At its inception advertising was merely an announcement; for example,...

• airline industry the business of transporting paying passengers and freight by air along regularly scheduled routes, typically by airplanes but also by helicopter.

• Amtrak the National Railroad Passenger Corp., authorized to operate virtually all intercity passenger railroad routes in the United States. Amtrak was created by Congress in 1970 in response to more than...

• annuity see insurance.

• assurance see insurance.

• auditing examination and statement of accounts and of other documents connected with accounts by persons who have had no part in their preparation. Systems of financial inspection have long been used,...

• automobile industry the business of producing and selling self-powered vehicles, including passenger cars, trucks, farm equipment, and other commercial vehicles. By allowing consumers to commute long distances for...

• Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O), first U.S. public railroad, chartered in 1827 by a group of Baltimore businessmen to regain trans-Allegheny traffic lost to the newly opened Erie Canal. Construction began in 1828, and the first division opened in May, 1830, between Baltimore and Ellicott's Mills, Md. Horses were the first source of power, but the successful trial run of Peter...

• bonding see insurance.

• bookkeeping maintenance of systematic and convenient records of money transactions in order to show the condition of a business enterprise. The essential purpose of bookkeeping is to reveal the amounts and...

• broker one who acts as an intermediary in a sale or other business transaction between two parties. Such a person conducts individual transactions only, is given no general authority by the employers,...

• Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway railroad system in much of the United States (except the Northeast) and in S Canada, created in 1995 from the merger of Burlington Northern Inc. and the Santa Fe Pacific Corp. (see Santa Fe Railroad ). The Burlington Northern RR, with headquarters in Fort Worth, Tex, was itself created (1970) from the merger of four older regional railroads: the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy RR (est. 1864), the Northern Pacific Railway (1864), the Great Northern Railway (1857), and the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railway (1905). In 1980, Burlington Northern acquired the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway (chartered 1849). By the...

• business ethics the study and evaluation of decision making by businesses according to moral concepts and judgments. Ethical questions range from practical, narrowly defined issues, such as a company's obligation...

• cafeteria see restaurant.

• Canadian National Railway rail system in Canada and the United States, extending from coast to coast in Canada with many branch lines in each province and in the United States. The system began as an amalgamation of five...

• Canadian Pacific Railway transcontinental transportation system in Canada and extending into the United States, privately owned and operated. The construction of a railroad crossing the continent in Canadian territory was...

• chain store see store.

• chemical industry the business of using chemical reactions to turn raw materials, such as coal, oil, and salt, into a variety of products. During the 19th and 20th cent. technological advances in the chemical...

• Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O), former U.S. transportation company with railroad lines in eight states, Washington, D.C., and Ontario, Canada. Founded as the Louisa RR Company in Virginia in 1836, the railroad changed its...

• Christie's English firm of art auctioneers and appraisers, one of the largest clearinghouses in the world for art objects of all kinds. Founded in 1766 by James Christie, it has locations all over the world. ...

• communications industry broadly defined, the business of conveying information. Although communication by means of symbols and gestures dates to the beginning of human history, the term generally refers to mass...

• conglomerate corporation whose asset growth, often very rapid, comes largely through the acquisition of, or merger with, other firms whose products are largely unrelated to each other or to that of the parent...

• cost accounting see accounting.

• department store see store.

• diner restaurant resembling the railroad dining car that is its source. In the mid-19th cent., the first dining cars that appeared on trains were nothing more than an empty car with a fastened-down...

• discount store see store.

• domestic service work performed in a household by someone who is not a member of the family. It was performed by slaves in many early civilizations, e.g., in Greece and Rome. Under the feudal system the work was...

• electronics industry the business of creating, designing, producing, and selling devices such as radios, televisions, stereos, computers, semiconductors, transistors, and integrated circuits (see electronics ). As sales of electronic products in the United States grew from some $200 million in 1927 to over $266 billion in 1990, the electronics industry transformed factories, offices, and homes, emerging...

• Erie Railroad rail transportation line designed to connect the mouth of the Hudson River with the Great Lakes region. The New York and Erie RR Company was enfranchised and incorporated in 1832, and construction...

• factory place of production characterized by wage labor, the use of machinery, and the division of labor. The large-scale use of machinery differentiates factory production from simple manufacture, and the...

• fair market exhibition at which producers, traders, and consumers meet either to barter or to buy and sell goods and services. Before the development of transportation and marketing, fairs furnished the...

• fair-trade laws in the United States, a former group of statutes that permitted manufacturers to specify the minimum retail price of a commodity. The first fair-trade law was adopted (1931) by California. Intended...

• fire insurance see insurance.

• fund-raising large-scale soliciting of voluntary contributions, especially in the United States. Fund-raising is widely undertaken by charitable organizations, educational institutions, and political groups to...

• golden parachute a contract given to top executives of a corporation to provide benefits in case of job loss due to a takeover by another firm or a merger. The unusually generous benefits may include substantial...

• greenmail payment, by a corporation that is a takeover target, of a premium price for the shares of its stock that have been accumulated by the potential buyer. In exchange, the potential buyer stops the...

• group insurance see insurance.

• Honda, Soichiro 1906-91, Japanese automobile executive. A mechanic and race car driver, he was a self-taught engineer. Honda founded a motorcycle company in the 1940s and began producing cars in the 1950s. His...

• hotel [Fr., from O.Fr. (origin of Eng. hostel ), from Latin (origin of Eng. hospital ),=guest place], name applied since the late 17th cent. to an establishment supplying both food and lodging to the public (see inn ). In common law of England and America, the hotelkeeper is a public servant and must receive all proper persons. The first American hotels, successors to the early inns, differed from their...

• inn in Great Britain, any hotel, public house, tavern, or coffeehouse where lodging is provided. In American usage, the inn is generally a small rural lodging house for transients. Among the earliest...

• insurance or assurance, device for indemnifying or guaranteeing an individual against loss. Reimbursement is made from a fund to which many individuals exposed to the same risk have contributed certain specified amounts,...

• keiretsu see zaibatsu.

• life insurance see insurance.

• Lloyd's London insurance underwriting corporation of many separate syndicates; often called Lloyd's of London. Founded in the late 17th cent. by a group of merchants, shipowners, and insurance brokers at...

• mall see shopping center.

• maquiladoras Mexican assembly plants that manufacture finished goods for export to the United States. The maquiladoras are generally owned by non-Mexican corporations. They take advantage of plentiful...

• marine insurance see insurance.

• meatpacking or meat-processing, wholesale business of buying and slaughtering animals and then processing and distributing their carcasses to retailers. The livestock industry is among the largest in the world. In the United...

• Mitsubishi see zaibatsu.

• Mitsui see zaibatsu.

• motel public lodging establishment for automobile travelers. Motels have traditionally differed from hotels in that the former have facilities for free parking on the premises, are seldom more than three...

• multinational corporation business enterprise with manufacturing, sales, or service subsidiaries in one or more foreign countries, also known as a transnational or international corporation. These corporations originated...

• New York Central RR U.S. transportation compay formed in 1853 by the consolidation of many small New York state railroads. In 1867, Cornelius Vanderbilt became president of the railroad and, through a series of...

• New York, New Haven, and Hartford RR commonly called the New Haven RR; inc. 1872. Between 1872 and 1920, when dozens of small railroads were completed under the direction of financier John P. Morgan and company president Charles S...

• no-fault insurance type of indemnity plan, usually applied to automobile coverage, in which those injured in an accident receive direct payment from the company with which they themselves are insured. Originated...

• Northern Pacific Railway former American rail line, following the northern route from Duluth and St. Paul, Minn., to Seattle, Wash., and Portland, Oreg. The Northern Pacific Railroad Company was chartered by special act of...

• oil industry the business of discovering oil ( petroleum ), extracting it from the ground, refining it into a variety of products, and distributing it to the public. The development of the oil industry in the 19th and 20th cent. provided a source of...

• packing industry see meatpacking.

• pawnbroker one who makes loans on personal effects that are left as security. The practice of pawnbroking is ancient, as is recognition of the danger it involves of oppressing the poor. In fact, the Bible...

• peddler or hawker, itinerant vendor of small goods. In rural America peddlers carried their packs or drove a horse and cart from door to door. While the importance of peddlers to the small American community declined...

• Penn Central Company former U.S. transportation company, formed in 1968 by the merger of the New York Central RR and the Pennsylvania RR. By the early 1970s the railroad was bankrupt; in 1976 the U.S. government created Conrail from the Penn Central and five other failed eastern railroads. In 1994 the company became an insurance...

• Pennsylvania Railroad former U.S. transportation company; inc. 1846 by the Pennsylvania legislature. It opened in 1854 as a single-track line between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Beginning in 1857, the company purchased...

• pike in U.S. history: see turnpike.

• public relations activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests...

• public utility see utility, public.

• restaurant a commerical establishment where meals can be bought and eaten. In the 16th cent. English inns and taverns began to serve one meal a day at a fixed time and price, at a common table, and usually...

• Santa Fe Railroad former U.S. railroad, chartered in 1863 as the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe RR; opened to traffic in 1864. Construction continued, and in 1880 it reached Santa Fe, N.Mex.; the following year the...

• shipping transportation of passengers and goods on waterways. From prehistoric times shipping has had a major influence on human social development. Water routes, unlike roads, did not need building, and...

• skywriting advertising medium in which aircraft spell out trade names and sales slogans in the sky by means of the controlled emission of thick smoke. The technique was first developed (1922) by J. C. Savage,...

• slaughterhouse see abattoir ; meatpacking.

• Southern Pacific Company transportation system chartered (1865) in California and later reincorporated in Kentucky (1885) and Delaware (1947). Small railroads—known collectively as the Southern Pacific—were built and...

• steel industry the business of processing iron ore into steel, which in its simplest form is an iron-carbon alloy, and in some cases, turning that metal into partially finished products or recycling scrap metal...

• store commonly a shop or stall for the retail sale of commodities, but also a place where wholesale supplies are kept, exhibited, or sold. Retailing—the sale of merchandise to the consumer—is one of the...

• tavern see inn.

• tenement house see apartment house ; House ; housing.

• time and motion study analysis of the operations required to produce a manufactured article in a factory, with the aim of increasing efficiency. Each operation is studied minutely and analyzed in order to eliminate...

• transportation conveyance of goods and people over land, across water, and through the air. See also commerce.

• turnpike road paid for partly or wholly by fees collected from travelers at tollgates. It derives its name from the hinged bar that prevented passage through such a gate until the toll was paid. See also road...

• Union Pacific Railroad transportation company chartered (1862) by Congress to build part of the nation's first transcontinental railroad line. Under terms of the Pacific Railroads Act, the Union Pacific was authorized to...

• utility, public industry required by law to render adequate service in its field at reasonable prices to all who apply for it. Public utilities frequently operate as monopolies in their market. In the United...

• value-added tax (VAT), levy imposed on business at all levels of the manufacture and production of a good or service and based on the increase in price, or value, provided by each level. Because the consumer...

• Western Union Telegraph Company enterprise created (1851) to provide telegraphic communications services in the United States. Originally known as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company, Western Union (as...

• zaibatsu [Jap.,=money clique], the great family-controlled banking and industrial combines of modern Japan. The leading zaibatsu (called keiretsu after World War II) are Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Dai Ichi Kangyo,...