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The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America (AMC) was a labor union that represented meatpackers and butchers in Chicago. The group was chartered by the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1897 by AFL president Samuel Gompers. The AMC is most famous for a strike it held in 1904 where 18,000 workers left their posts on July 12 out of a demand for higher wages. The strike escalated when union members assaulted replacement cattle workers. Police were called to protect the cattle workers, whose involvement spurred a riot involving 4,000 union members. The union members were eventually defeated and signed a contract with meatpacking company president J. Ogden Armour on September 6, 1904. These riots are referenced in Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle . The AMC eventually merged with other unions, such as the International Fur and Leather Workers Union, the National Agriculture Workers Union, and the Packinghouse Workers of America. The group exists now as the United Food and Commerical Workers (UFCW) after a merger with the AMCBW in 1979.

Brown and Bigelow, Co. was established in 1896 by Herbert Bigelow and Hiram Brown. The company earned its fortune selling calenders, most famously of pin-up girls and prints by American painters such as Norman Rockwell and Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. In 1927, Brown and Bigelow began printing playing cards and eventually bought the rights to the Hoyle brand.