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68-519: The Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Company was a trust incorporated in New Jersey in 1899 by leading Pittsburgh industrialists, including Andrew W. Mellon , Henry W. Oliver , and Henry Clay Frick . Although a New Jersey corporation, it operated only in the Pittsburgh area. At its inception, the company took control of over 80 coal businesses and 80,000 acres (32,000 ha) of land on both sides of

136-535: A 65.4% payout ratio . The total net earnings from 1882 to 1906 amounted to $ 838,783,800 (equivalent to $ 21,321,800,000 in 2023), exceeding the dividends by $ 290,347,800, which was used for plant expansions. In 1896, John Rockefeller retired from the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, the holding company of the group, but remained president and a major shareholder. Vice-president John Dustin Archbold took

204-524: A British petroleum entrepreneur in Mexico, began negotiating with Standard Oil in 1912–13 to sell his "El Aguila" oil company, since Pearson was no longer bound to promises to the Porfirio Díaz regime (1876–1911) to not to sell to U.S. interests. However, the deal fell through and the firm was sold to Royal Dutch Shell . Standard Oil's production increased so rapidly it soon exceeded U.S. demand and

272-471: A beam of 32 feet (9.8 m), a depth of 10 feet 6 inches (3.2 m), and had a bulletproof wheelhouse. Mei Ping ("Beautiful Tranquility"), launched in 1927, was designed off-shore, but assembled and finished in Shanghai. Its oil-fuel burners came from the U.S. and water-tube boilers came from England. Standard Oil Company and Socony-Vacuum Oil Company became partners in providing markets for

340-665: A dozen or so within Standard Oil knew the extent of company operations. The committee counsel, Simon Sterne , questioned representatives from the Erie Railroad and the New York Central Railroad and discovered that at least half of their long-haul traffic granted rebates and much of this traffic came from Standard Oil. The committee then shifted focus to Standard Oil's operations. John Dustin Archbold , as president of Acme Oil Company, denied that Acme

408-457: A gallon or forty-two cents a barrel, an effective 71% discount from its listed rates in return for a promise to ship at least 60 carloads of oil daily and to handle loading and unloading on its own. Smaller companies decried such deals as unfair because they were not producing enough oil to qualify for discounts. Standard's actions and secret transport deals helped its kerosene price to drop from 58 to 26 cents from 1865 to 1870. Rockefeller used

476-572: A group of corporations that cooperate with one another in various ways. These ways can include constituting a trade association , owning stock in one another, constituting a corporate group (sometimes specifically a conglomerate ), or combinations thereof. The term trust is often used in a historical sense to refer to monopolies or near-monopolies in the United States during the Second Industrial Revolution in

544-609: A growing Standard Oil spin-off in its own right. In the Asia-Pacific region, Jersey Standard had oil production and refineries in the Dutch East Indies but no marketing network. Socony-Vacuum had Asian marketing outlets supplied remotely from California. In 1933, Jersey Standard and Socony-Vacuum merged their interests in the region into a 50–50 joint venture. Standard-Vacuum Oil Co., or "Stanvac", operated in 50 countries, from East Africa to New Zealand , before it

612-470: A large part in the running of the firm. In the year 1904, Standard Oil controlled 91% of oil refinement and 85% of final sales in the United States. At this time, state and federal laws sought to counter this development with antitrust laws. In 1911, the U.S. Justice Department sued the group under the federal antitrust law and ordered its breakup into 39 companies. Standard Oil's market position

680-412: A market, which is how the narrower sense of the term grew out of the broader sense. In the United States, the use of corporate trusts died out in the early 20th century as U.S. states passed laws making it easier to create new corporations . The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) dates use of the word trust in a business organization sense from 1825. The business or "corporate" trust came into use in

748-900: A quarter of the shares of the resultant companies, and those share values mostly doubled, he emerged from the dissolution as the richest man in the world. The dissolution had actually propelled Rockefeller's personal wealth. By 1911 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States , that Standard Oil of New Jersey must be dissolved under the Sherman Antitrust Act and split into 39 companies. Two of these companies were Standard Oil of New Jersey (Jersey Standard or Esso), which eventually became Exxon , and Standard Oil of New York (Socony), which eventually became Mobil ; those two companies later merged into ExxonMobil . Over

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816-484: A result of the historical public aversion to trusts, while other countries use the term competition laws instead. Monopoly pricing had also become a contentious issue, with several states passing Granger Laws to regulate railroad and grain elevator prices to protect farmers. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 created the Interstate Commerce Commission for similar purposes, federalizing

884-426: A second party, called a trustee. The trustee holds the property, while any benefit from the property accrues to another person, the beneficiary. Trusts are commonly used to hold inheritances for the benefit of children and other family members, for example. In business, such trusts, with corporate entities as the trustees, have sometimes been used to combine several large businesses in order to exert complete control over

952-414: A symbol of the reliable "standards" of quality and service that he envisioned for the nascent oil industry. In the early years, John D. Rockefeller dominated the combine; he was the single most important figure in shaping the new oil industry. He quickly distributed power and the tasks of policy formation to a system of committees, but always remained the largest shareholder . Authority was centralized in

1020-410: A tanker, was specially designed for river duty. It was built by New Engineering and Shipbuilding Works of Shanghai, who also built the 500-ton launch Mei Foo in 1912. Mei Hsia ("Beautiful Gorges") was launched in 1926 and carried 350 tons of bulk oil in three holds, plus a forward cargo hold, and space between decks for carrying general cargo or packed oil. She had a length of 206 feet (63 m),

1088-544: The Chevron Corp . Some have speculated that if not for that court ruling, Standard Oil could have possibly been worth more than $ 1 trillion in the 2000s. Whether the breakup of Standard Oil was beneficial is a matter of some controversy. Some economists believe that Standard Oil was not a monopoly, and argue that the intense free market competition resulted in cheaper oil prices and more diverse petroleum products. Critics claimed that success in meeting consumer needs

1156-676: The Erie Canal as a cheap alternative form of transportation—in the summer months when it was not frozen—to ship his refined oil from Cleveland to the industrialized Northeast. In the winter months, his only options were the three trunk lines—the Erie Railroad and the New York Central Railroad to New York City, and the Pennsylvania Railroad to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Competitors disliked

1224-808: The Monongahela River . Pittsburgh Terminal Coal ran numerous coal mines in Allegheny County during the early 20th century. It operated the Darr Mine in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania . In 1915, it merged with the Monongahela River Consolidated Coal and Coke Company . In 1945 it merged with Consolidation Coal Company , controlled by the Rockefeller family . Near its beginning,

1292-573: The Motion Picture Patents Company or Edison Trust which controlled the movie patents. Patents were also important to the Bell Telephone Company , as indicated by the massive litigation that came to be known as The Telephone Cases . Standard Oil Standard Oil is the common name for a corporate trust in the petroleum industry that existed from 1882 to 1911. The origins of the trust lay in

1360-502: The Sherman Antitrust Act (Senate 51–1; House 242–0), a source of American anti-monopoly laws. The law forbade every contract, scheme, deal, or conspiracy to restrain trade, though the phrase "restraint of trade" remained subjective. The Standard Oil group quickly attracted attention from antitrust authorities leading to a lawsuit filed by Ohio Attorney General David K. Watson . From 1882 to 1906, Standard paid out $ 548,436,000 (equivalent to $ 13,941,200,000 in 2023) in dividends at

1428-430: The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, for sustaining a monopoly and restraining interstate commerce by: Rebates, preferences, and other discriminatory practices in favor of the combination by railroad companies; restraint and monopolization by control of pipe lines, and unfair practices against competing pipe lines; contracts with competitors in restraint of trade; unfair methods of competition, such as local price cutting at

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1496-678: The South Improvement Co. which would have allowed him to receive rebates for shipping and drawbacks on oil his competitors shipped. But when this deal became known, competitors convinced the Pennsylvania Legislature to revoke South Improvement's charter. No oil was ever shipped under this arrangement. Using highly effective tactics, later widely criticized, it absorbed or destroyed most of its competition in Cleveland in less than two months and later throughout

1564-590: The US Supreme Court upheld the lower court judgment and declared the Standard Oil group to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act , Section II. It ordered Standard to break up into 39 independent companies with different boards of directors, the biggest two of the companies being Standard Oil of New Jersey (which became Exxon ) and Standard Oil of New York (which became Mobil ). Standard's president, John D. Rockefeller, had long since retired from any management role. But, as he owned

1632-512: The Yangtze River , the largest of which were Mei Ping (1,118  gross register tons  (GRT)), Mei Hsia (1,048 GRT), and Mei An (934 GRT). All three were destroyed in the 1937 USS Panay incident . Mei An was launched in 1901 and was the first vessel in the fleet. Other vessels included Mei Chuen , Mei Foo , Mei Hung , Mei Kiang , Mei Lu , Mei Tan , Mei Su , Mei Hsia , Mei Ying , and Mei Yun . Mei Hsia ,

1700-519: The 1929 death of their union employee John Barcoski due to a beating by three officers of the Coal and Iron Police . The company was involved in labor disputes with John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers . Trust (business) A trust or corporate trust is a large grouping of business interests with significant market power , which may be embodied as a corporation or as

1768-470: The 19th century and early 20th century. The use of corporate trusts during this period is the historical reason for the name " antitrust law ". In the broader sense of the term, relating to trust law , a trust is a legal arrangement based on principles developed and recognised over centuries in English law, specifically in equity , by which one party conveys legal possession and title of certain property to

1836-520: The 19th-century United States, during the Gilded Age , as a legal device to consolidate industrial activity across state lines. In 1882 John D. Rockefeller and other owners of Standard Oil faced several obstacles to managing and profiting from their large oil refining business. The existing approach of separately owning and dealing with several companies in each state was unwieldy, often resulting in turf battles and non-uniform practices. Furthermore,

1904-548: The Pennsylvania legislature proposed to tax out-of-state corporations on their entire business activity. Concerned that other states could follow, Standard Oil had its attorney Samuel C. T. Dodd adapt the common law instrument of a trust to avoid cross-state taxation and to impose a single management hierarchy. The Standard Oil Trust was formed pursuant to a trust agreement in which the individual shareholders of many separate corporations agreed to convey their shares to

1972-719: The Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Company owned six collector railroads. The company operated the Coal Hill Coal Railroad , a 1.5-mile (2.4 km), 3 ft 4 in ( 1,016 mm ) narrow gauge railroad until 1871, when it was sold to the Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad , which lengthened the line. The company assumed control of the Montour Railroad in 1901. Pittsburgh Terminal Coal paid compensation in

2040-495: The Standard Oil Co. charges altogether excessive prices where it meets no competition, and particularly where there is little likelihood of competitors entering the field, and that, on the other hand, where competition is active, it frequently cuts prices to a point which leaves even the Standard little or no profit, and which more often leaves no profit to the competitor, whose costs are ordinarily somewhat higher. On May 15, 1911,

2108-475: The Standard into markets, or they have been made high to keep its competitors out of markets. Trifling differences in distances are made an excuse for large differences in rates favorable to the Standard Oil Co., while large differences in distances are ignored where they are against the Standard. Sometimes connecting roads prorate on oil—that is, make through rates which are lower than the combination of local rates; sometimes they refuse to prorate; but in either case

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2176-499: The United States. In 1911, the landmark Supreme Court case Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States found Jersey Standard guilty of anticompetitive practices and ordered it to break up its holdings. The charge against Jersey came about in part as a consequence of the reporting of Ida Tarbell , who wrote The History of the Standard Oil Company . The net value of companies severed from Jersey Standard in 1911

2244-482: The company began viewing export markets. In the 1890s, Standard Oil began marketing kerosene to China's large population of close to 400 million as lamp fuel. For its Chinese trademark and brand, Standard Oil adopted the name Mei Foo ( Chinese : 美孚 ) as a transliteration. Mei Foo also became the name of the tin lamp that Standard Oil produced and gave away or sold cheaply to Chinese farmers, encouraging them to switch from vegetable oil to kerosene. The response

2312-732: The company include Henry Flagler, developer of the Florida East Coast Railway and resort cities, and Henry H. Rogers , who built the Virginian Railway . In 1885, Standard Oil of Ohio moved its headquarters from Cleveland to its permanent headquarters at 26 Broadway in New York City . Concurrently, the trustees of Standard Oil of Ohio chartered the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey (SOCNJ) to take advantage of New Jersey's more lenient corporate stock ownership laws. In 1890, Congress overwhelmingly passed

2380-512: The company together) and the Rockefeller family controlled a majority of the stock during all the history of the company up to the present time." These families reinvested most of the dividends in other industries, especially railroads. They also invested heavily in the gas and the electric lighting business (including the giant Consolidated Gas Co. of New York City ). They made large purchases of stock in U.S. Steel , Amalgamated Copper , and even Corn Products Refining Co. Weetman Pearson ,

2448-587: The company's business practices, but consumers liked the lower prices. Standard Oil, being formed well before the discovery of the Spindletop oil field (in Texas, far from Standard Oil's base in the Midwest) and a demand for oil other than for heat and light, was well placed to control the growth of the oil business. The company was perceived to own and control all aspects of the trade. In 1872, Rockefeller joined

2516-601: The company's main office in Cleveland, but decisions in the office were made cooperatively. The company grew by increasing sales and through acquisitions. After purchasing competing firms, Rockefeller shut down those he believed to be inefficient and kept the others. In a seminal deal, in 1868, the Lake Shore Railroad, a part of the New York Central , gave Rockefeller's firm a going rate of one cent

2584-565: The legal instruments used to create the corporate trusts, received a hostile reception in state courts during the 1880s and were quickly phased out in the 1890s in favor of other devices like holding companies for maintaining centralized corporate control. For example, the Standard Oil Trust terminated its own trust agreement in March 1892. Regardless, the name stuck, and American competition laws are known today as antitrust laws as

2652-484: The movement against anti-competitive business practices. In 1898, President William McKinley launched the trust-busting era (one aspect of the Progressive Era ) when he appointed the U.S. Industrial Commission . Theodore Roosevelt seized upon the commission's report and based much of his presidency (1901–1909) on trust-busting . Prominent trusts included: Other companies also formed trusts, such as

2720-579: The next few decades, both companies grew significantly. Jersey Standard, led by Walter C. Teagle , became the largest oil producer in the world. It acquired a 50 percent share in Humble Oil & Refining Co. , a Texas oil producer. Socony purchased a 45 percent interest in Magnolia Petroleum Co. , a major refiner, marketer, and pipeline transporter. In 1931, Socony merged with Vacuum Oil Co. , an industry pioneer dating back to 1866, and

2788-551: The northeastern United States. A. Barton Hepburn was directed by the New York State Legislature in 1879, to investigate the railroads' practice of giving rebates to their largest clients within the state . Merchants without ties to the oil industry had pressed for the hearings. Prior to the committee's investigation, few knew of the size of Standard Oil's control and influence on seemingly unaffiliated oil refineries and pipelines—Hawke (1980) cites that only

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2856-731: The oil reserves in the Middle East. In 1906, SOCONY (later Mobil) opened its first fuel terminals in Alexandria. It explored in Palestine before the World War broke out, but ran into conflict with the local authorities. By 1890, Standard Oil controlled 88 percent of the refined oil flows in the United States. The state of Ohio successfully sued Standard, compelling the dissolution of the trust in 1892. But Standard simply separated Standard Oil of Ohio and kept control of it. Eventually,

2924-399: The open arrangement of rates; (3) discriminations in classification and rules of shipment; (4) discriminations in the treatment of private tank cars. The government alleged: Almost everywhere the rates from the shipping points used exclusively, or almost exclusively, by the Standard are relatively lower than the rates from the shipping points of its competitors. Rates have been made low to let

2992-562: The operations of the Standard Oil Company (Ohio) , which had been founded in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller . The trust was born on January 2, 1882, when a group of 41 investors signed the Standard Oil Trust Agreement, which pooled their securities of 40 companies into a single holding agency managed by nine trustees. The original trust was valued at $ 70 million. On March 21, 1892, the Standard Oil Trust

3060-520: The organization of large businesses, they soon faced widespread accusations of abusing their market power to engage in anticompetitive business practices (in order to establish and maintain monopolies). Such accusations caused the term trust to become strongly associated with such practices among the American public and led to the enactment in 1890 of the Sherman Antitrust Act , the first U.S. federal competition statute. Meanwhile, trust agreements,

3128-427: The period of 1904 to 1906 and concluded that "beyond question ... the dominant position of the Standard Oil Co. in the refining industry was due to unfair practices—to abuse of the control of pipe-lines, to railroad discriminations, and to unfair methods of competition in the sale of the refined petroleum products". Because of competition from other firms, their market share gradually eroded to 70 percent by 1906 which

3196-426: The points where necessary to suppress competition; [and] espionage of the business of competitors, the operation of bogus independent companies, and payment of rebates on oil, with the like intent. The lawsuit argued that Standard's monopolistic practices had taken place over the preceding four years: The general result of the investigation has been to disclose the existence of numerous and flagrant discriminations by

3264-583: The railroads in behalf of the Standard Oil Co. and its affiliated corporations. With comparatively few exceptions, mainly of other large concerns in California, the Standard has been the sole beneficiary of such discriminations. In almost every section of the country that company has been found to enjoy some unfair advantages over its competitors, and some of these discriminations affect enormous areas. The government identified four illegal patterns: (1) secret and semi-secret railroad rates; (2) discriminations in

3332-599: The result of their policy is to favor the Standard Oil Co. Different methods are used in different places and under different conditions, but the net result is that from Maine to California the general arrangement of open rates on petroleum oil is such as to give the Standard an unreasonable advantage over its competitors. The government said that Standard raised prices to its monopolistic customers but lowered them to hurt competitors, often disguising its illegal actions by using bogus, supposedly independent companies it controlled. The evidence is, in fact, absolutely conclusive that

3400-787: The scale of companies, Rockefeller and his associates developed innovative ways of organizing to effectively manage their fast-growing enterprise. On January 2, 1882, they combined their disparate companies, spread across dozens of states, under a single group of trustees. By a secret agreement, the existing 37 stockholders conveyed their shares "in trust" to nine trustees: John and William Rockefeller, Oliver H. Payne , Charles Pratt , Henry Flagler , John D. Archbold , William G. Warden, Jabez Bostwick , and Benjamin Brewster . "Whereas some state legislatures imposed special taxes on out-of-state corporations doing business in their states, other legislatures forbade corporations in their state from holding

3468-472: The sister of William Rockefeller's wife. In 1870, Rockefeller abolished the partnership and incorporated Standard Oil in Ohio. Of the initial 10,000 shares, John D. Rockefeller received 2,667, Harkness received 1,334, William Rockefeller, Flagler, and Andrews received 1,333 each, Jennings received 1,000, and the firm of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler received 1,000. Rockefeller chose the "Standard Oil" name as

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3536-669: The state of New Jersey changed its incorporation laws to allow a company to hold shares in other companies in any state. So, in 1899, the Standard Oil Trust, based at 26 Broadway in New York, was legally reborn as a holding company , the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey (SOCNJ), which held stock in 41 other companies, which controlled other companies, which in turn controlled yet other companies. According to Daniel Yergin in his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (1990), this conglomerate

3604-493: The stock of companies based elsewhere. (Legislators established such restrictions in the hope that they would force successful companies to incorporate—and thus pay taxes—in their state.)" Standard Oil's organizational concept proved so successful that other giant enterprises adopted this "trust" form. By 1882, Rockefeller's top aide was John Dustin Archbold , whom he left in control after disengaging from business to concentrate on philanthropy after 1896. Other notable principals of

3672-413: The term itself has become contaminated. This is unfortunate, for it is difficult to find a substitute for it. There may, of course, be illegal trusts; but a trust in and by itself is not illegal: when resorted to for a proper purpose, it has been for centuries enforced by courts of justice, and is, in fact, the creature of a court of equity . Although such corporate trusts were initially set up to improve

3740-401: The traditional sense and the new corporate trusts: A trust is ... simply the case of one person holding the title of property, whether land or chattels, for the benefit of another, termed a beneficiary. Nothing can be more common or more useful. But the word is now loosely applied to a certain class of commercial agreements and, by reason of a popular and unreasoning dread of their effect,

3808-431: The trust; it ended up entirely owning 14 corporations and also exercised majority control over 26 others. Nine individuals held trust certificates and acted as the trust's board of trustees. One of those trustees, Rockefeller himself, held 41% of the trust certificates; the next most powerful trustee held about 13%. This trust became a model for other industries. An 1888 article explained the difference between trusts in

3876-505: The twentieth century. These included the Standard Oil Company of New York , Standard Oil Company (Indiana) , Standard Oil Company (California) , Ohio Oil Company , Continental Oil Company , and Atlantic Refining Company . Standard Oil's prehistory began in 1863, as an Ohio partnership formed by industrialist John D. Rockefeller , his brother William Rockefeller , Henry Flagler , chemist Samuel Andrews , silent partner Stephen V. Harkness , and Oliver Burr Jennings , who had married

3944-442: Was $ 375 million, which constituted 57 per cent of Jersey's value. After the dissolution, Jersey Standard became the United States' second largest corporation after United States Steel . The Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), which was renamed Exxon in 1973 and ExxonMobil in 1999, remains the largest public oil company in the world. Many of the companies disassociated from Jersey Standard in 1911 remained powerful businesses through

4012-467: Was a Standard company only from 1908 until 1911. One of the original " Muckrakers " Ida M. Tarbell , was an American author and journalist whose father was an oil producer whose business had failed because of Rockefeller's business dealings. After extensive interviews with a sympathetic senior executive of Standard Oil, Henry H. Rogers , Tarbell's investigations of Standard Oil fueled growing public attacks on Standard Oil and monopolies in general. Her work

4080-410: Was associated with Standard Oil. He then admitted to being a director of Standard Oil. The committee's final report scolded the railroads for their rebate policies and cited Standard Oil as an example. This scolding was largely moot to Standard Oil's interests since long-distance oil pipelines were now their preferred method of transportation. In response to state laws that had the result of limiting

4148-421: Was dissolved and its holdings were reorganized into 20 independent companies that formed an unofficial union referred to as "Standard Oil Interests." In 1899, the Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) acquired the shares of the other 19 companies and became the holding company for the trust. Jersey Standard operated a near monopoly in the American oil industry from 1899 until 1911 and was the largest corporation in

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4216-462: Was dissolved in 1962. Rockefeller's original company, Standard Oil Company of Ohio ( Sohio ), effectively ceased to exist when it was purchased by BP in 1987. BP continued to sell gasoline under the Sohio brand until 1991. Other Standard oil entities include "Standard Oil of Indiana" which became Amoco after other mergers and a name change in the 1980s, and "Standard Oil of California" which became

4284-597: Was formed in 1933. To distribute its products, Standard Oil constructed storage tanks, canneries (bulk oil from large ocean tankers was re-packaged into 5-US-gallon (19 L; 4.2 imp gal) tins), warehouses, and offices in key Chinese cities. For inland distribution, the company had motor tank trucks and railway tank cars, and for river navigation, it had a fleet of low-draft steamers and other vessels. Stanvac's North China Division, based in Shanghai, owned hundreds of vessels, including motor barges, steamers, launches, tugboats, and tankers. Up to 13 tankers operated on

4352-519: Was initially established through an emphasis on efficiency and responsibility. While most companies dumped gasoline in rivers (this was before the automobile was popular), Standard used it to fuel its machines. While other companies' refineries piled mountains of heavy waste, Rockefeller found ways to sell it. For example, Standard bought the company that invented and produced Vaseline , the Chesebrough Manufacturing Co. , which

4420-619: Was positive, sales boomed and China became Standard Oil's largest market in Asia. Prior to Pearl Harbor, Stanvac was the largest single U.S. investment in Southeast Asia . The North China Department of Socony (Standard Oil Company of New York) operated a subsidiary called Socony River and Coastal Fleet, North Coast Division, which became the North China Division of Stanvac (Standard Vacuum Oil Company) after that company

4488-654: Was published in 19 parts in McClure's magazine from November 1902 to October 1904, then in 1904 as the book The History of the Standard Oil Co . The Standard Oil Trust was controlled by a small group of families. Rockefeller stated in 1910: "I think it is true that the Pratt family, the Payne– Whitney family (which were one, as all the stock came from Colonel Payne), the Harkness-Flagler family (which came into

4556-449: Was seen by the public as all-pervasive, controlled by a select group of directors, and completely unaccountable. In 1904, Standard controlled 91 percent of production and 85 percent of final sales. Most of its output was kerosene , of which 55 percent was exported around the world. After 1900 it did not try to force competitors out of business by selling at a loss. The federal Commissioner of Corporations studied Standard's operations from

4624-434: Was the year when the antitrust case was filed against Standard. Standard's market share was 64 percent by 1911 when Standard was ordered broken up. At least 147 refining companies were competing with Standard including Gulf, Texaco, and Shell. It did not try to monopolize the exploration and extraction of oil (its share in 1911 was 11 percent). In 1909, the U.S. Justice Department sued Standard under federal antitrust law,

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