This manual examines 900 nonpublic US enterprises, including large industrial and service corporations like Milliken & Company and PricewaterhouseCoopers; hospitals and health-care organizations such as Blue Cross; charitable and membership organizations, including the Ford Foundation; mutual and co-operative organizations such as IGA; joint ventures such as Motiva; government-owned corporations such as the United States Postal Service; and major university systems, including The University of Texas System.
The encyclopedia takes a broad, multidisciplinary approach to the history of the period. It includes general and specific entries on politics and business, labor, industry, agriculture, education and youth, law and legislative affairs, literature, music, the performing and visual arts, health and medicine, science and technology, exploration, life on the Western frontier, family life, slave life, Native American life, women, and more than a hundred influential individuals.