America's Biggest Companies, Then and Now (1955 to 2010)

Investing

Published: September 21, 2010 6:46 am

Last Updated: March 26, 2020 9:30 pm

Today’s corporate America is dominated by service companies, tech firms, and huge retailers which have thousands of locations and hundreds of thousands of workers. At the end of the decade following WWII, corporate America looked very different from it does now. Fifty five years ago, most of the largest corporations in the US built cars, supplied car parts, or provided fuel for America’s vehicles.

What follows is 24/7 Wall St.’s review of how American business has changed, why, and what it looks like today. The employment figures were compiled using the Fortune 500 database from 1955 and 2010.

Among the ten largest employers in 1955 were GM, Chrysler, US Steel (NYSE: X), Standard Oil of New Jersey, Amoco, Goodyear (NYSE: GT), and Firestone. None could have existed or been nearly as large as they were without the insatiable appetite for American-made cars. What caused appetites and businesses to change will continue to be a matter of debate between business historians. Did the Japanese make better products? Did spikes in oil prices in the 1970s, 1980s, and two years ago knock the life out of the car business? Or, did the UAW and other large unions bleed the companies through high wages, rich pensions, and health care funds?

Today, four of the ten largest companies by total employees are Walmart (NYSE: WMT), Target (NYSE: TGT), Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD), and Kroger (NYSE: KR). Americans are drawn in huge numbers to retailers with low prices. The industry is dominated by companies which can source cheap goods, run them though efficient supply chains, and market them at low prices. Two of companies on the list from this year are IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ). They are the tip of an iceberg comprised of dozens of large tech companies with high margins, rapidly growing sales, and well-paid work forces. This group includes Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO, and Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL). With almost no exceptions, these companies did not exist five decades ago.

The decades-long movement away from a United States dominated by smoke stacks to one dominated by computers and malls has also caused a shift in the geographic placement of the country’s better-paid workers. In the 1920s, they migrated to the North – places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan – where blue-collar jobs were abundant. Eight decades later their descendants are out of work in numbers that total well into the millions.

Many workers could not be retrained to move from the old economy to the new, and those who could not afford to move from areas with poor employment prospects to those with better ones saw their standards of living decline.

As new industries emerge to replace those which are dominant today, these issues are likely to remain.

The Biggest Employers in 1955

1. General Motors
Employees in 1955: 576,667
Employees today: 204,000

The No.1 car company in the US used to be the No.1 car company in the world. In 1955, GM had more than 50% of the American vehicle market and, between direct employees and those at suppliers, it was responsible for more than 3 million US jobs. GM has emerged from bankruptcy, but has fewer than half as many people, and its US market share is only 20%.

2. U.S. Steel
Employees in 1955: 268,142
Employees today: 43,000

US Steel was the largest company in its industry worldwide and was among the Fortune 50 in 1955. A large portion of the steel manufacturing business has moved offshore, first to Japan and then China.

3. General Electric
Employees in 1955: 210,151
Employees today: 304,000

General Electric is one of the few companies that has grown significantly over the last five decades. It was largely an industrial firm in 1955, and now makes a large amount of its revenue and profits from financial services.

4. Chrysler
Employees in 1955: 167,813
Employees today: 58,000

Another car company that benefited from a very limited number of imports. The firm nearly went out of business during the 1980s recession and was rescued by the US government. It moved into Chapter 11 nearly two years ago.

5. Standard Oil Of New Jersey
Employees in 1955: 155,000
Employees today: 102,700

Standard Oil of New Jersey was part of the original Standard Oil trust created by John Rockefeller. The company was merged into what eventually became Exxon Mobil.

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6. Amoco
Employees in 1955: 135,784
Employees today: N/A

Another piece of the Rockefeller trust, the company was merged into BP America and is now part of BP plc.

7. CBS
Employees in 1955: 117,143
Employees today: 25,580

The dominant force in both national radio and TV, the company also owned several large stations. As media has broken into more forms of delivery, including cable and Internet, CBS has grown smaller.

8. AT&T Technologies
Employees in 1955: 98,141
Employees today: N/A

This division of AT&T handled the telephone company’s R&D was was spun out of AT&T completely in 1984.

9. Goodyear Tire & Rubber
Employees in 1955: 95,727
Employees today: 69,000

The largest tire company in the world in 1955, Goodyear had large plants around the world. As competition from Japanese companies grew, the company went through several restructurings including a move into energy.

10. Firestone Tire & Rubber
Employees in 1955: 90,000
Employees today: N/A

The second largest tire company in the world in 1955, Firestone was at one point the exclusive supplier to Ford. The company was sold to Bridgestone of Japan in 1988.

The Biggest Employers Today

1. Walmart
Employees today: 2,100,000
Employees in 1955: N/A

Walmart was not started until 1962. A local store chain in Arkansas, it expanded across the nation and outflanked rivals founded years earlier using intelligent product sourcing and low prices. Walmart is now the largest company in America.

2. International Business Machines
Employees today: 410,830
Employees in 1955: 46,500

The company was primarily a provider of high end and expensive computing machines. Over a period of 50 years it has added large software, IT consulting, and server businesses to become one of the world’s largest tech companies.

3. United Parcel Service
Employees today: 408,000
Employees in 1955: not on Fortune 500

The global mail and freight carrier used the growing movement to transport packages by air and a huge network of trucks to capture the lion’s share of the industry and effectively helped ruin the profitability of the US Postal Service.

Also Read: The History of What Things Cost In America: 1776 to Today

4. Target
Employees today: 351,000
Employees in 1955: not on Fortune 500

The No.2 US retailer opened its first store at about the same time Wal-Mart did. It has never been able to match its larger rival’s size but has still built a $65 billion a year business.

5. Kroger
Employees today: 334,000
Employees in 1955: not on Fortune 500

The company was a relatively large chain fifty years ago but has aggressively grown through M&A and entry into the private label business.

6. Sears Holdings
Employees today: 322,000
Employees in 1955: not on Fortune 500

Sears owes much of its size to the merger between K-Mart and Sears that created it in 2004. The two retail brands are not as successful as rivals like Wal-Mart but the company does operate at many locations.

7. General Electric
Employees today: 304,000
Employees in 1955: 210,151

GE operates large energy, health care, finance, and media businesses in addition to several operations tied to its older industrial base.

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8. Hewlett-Packard
Employees today: 304,000
Employees in 1955: not on Fortune 500

Now the world’s largest tech company based on revenue, in the 1940s and 1950s, HP concentrated on making professional and industrial testing tools. The company is now a major force in PCs, printers, servers, software, and IT consulting.

9. Bank of America
Employees today: 283,000
Employees in 1955: not on Fortune 500

The bank existed in 1955, but did not look anything like it does today. B of A was based almost exclusively in California in 1955. It is now a global bank with commercial, institutional, and investment banking arms. Two years ago, it bought Merrill Lynch and mortgage banking firm Countrywide.

10. AT&T
Employees today: 272,450
Employees in 1955: not on Fortune 500

AT&T has been dissolved and rebuilt since the government decided to break it into several pieces in 1984 because it was considered a monopoly. Most of the operating businesses have been reunited under the original brand and the company is primarily a provider of cellular, landline, and home entertainment.

-Douglas A. McIntyre

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