Oil Monopolies In The 1800s

After the civil war the number of factories increased, and so did the competition between businessmen. During the year 1879 trusts were developed and trusts operated all the companies and just paid profits to the stockholders. John D. Rockefeller was one of the first to form a trust in the oil industry. The creation of the sugar, steel, and the whisky trust were established because of the successfulness of the standard oil company.

One of the greatest threats to the country was the establishment of monopolies in certain industries, and industrialists like John Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Company, worked with the specific goal in mind to create a monopoly. For example, with Standard Oil Company, Rockefeller colluded with the railroad industry to have them raise the price of rail shipping for his competitors and in turn give the extra money the railroad companies made to Rockefeller and his company. Therefore, Rockefeller monopolized his industry by having railroads hike their prices for his competitors' shipping which thus increased the price of oil, and at the same time, Rockefeller was able to lower his price with the rail revenue he received, therefore putting all of his competitors out of business and establishing a monopoly. Once a monopoly is established, the company can set the price and has no need to innovate with the absence of competitors, thus harming the country as a whole. While corruption occurred between industrialists, there were also acts of corruption between industrialists and the government itself.

With Standard Oil being the leading oil company, this limits other oil companies to sales because Standard Oil had the rights to many companies to produce and sell oil leaving very few businesses that other oil companies could sell to. This puts the little companies into a decrease in sales while Standard Oil makes a huge increase in sales. Small businesses worry about becoming bankrupt while Rockefeller becomes wealthy. Rockefeller was the reason why there were limits to big businesses because he was in control with oil companies not allowing others to succeed as

Being an enterprising businessman Rockefeller sprung on the opportunity of this new commodity and by 1870 Rockefeller’s company Standard Oil had emerged

It bought up other companies across the country. In just over 10 years, it owned almost all the oil in America. " The monopolist can set his own price for his product without worrying about competition from other

The Standard oil co. Were able to form monopolies and encourage child

George Rice, a small businessman who was ousted by Rockefeller’s oil monopoly, stated, “I am but one of the many victims of Rockefeller’s colossal combination… the railroads were in league with the Standard Oil concern at every point, giving it discriminating rates and privileges… against myself…” (George Rice, “How I Was Ruined By Rockefeller”). The account by Rice underlined how his business failed to compete with the alliance of Rockefeller’s company and the railroads. Since the Standard Oil company had an absolute monopoly, it would work with the railroad companies to crush any competition, like that of Rice. With the rise of large industry and their monopolization, the economy of the US was largely controlled by the dominant companies.

The Keystone Pipeline System has been a major source of crude oil import for the U.S. in recent years. According to The New York Times, the Keystone alone supplies about a half million barrels of oil per day, which is almost a quarter of the total amount that Canada sends; Canada is the largest exporter of crude oil to the United States, supplying over 2 million barrels every day (Kraus; Keystone 293). The Keystone XL is one of the extension projects to boost the output of the existing system by building a pipeline that stretches over a thousand mile from “Alberta, Canada to Steel City, Nebraska, [and it is estimated to supply] 830,000 barrels a day” by converging with delivery points at Cushing, Oklahoma and Texas, then finally reaching

Rockefeller, who controlled the oil industry at the time, Cornelius Vanderbilt and George Pullman, they controlled the railroad industry, Andrew Carnegie, who controlled the steel industry and J.P Morgan a figure in the United States economy. Their industries later created monopolies, which is the complete possession or control of supply or trade in a raw material or service. John D. Rockefeller was the first monopoly. They created trusts in order to eliminate any competition. Workers noticed that they weren’t being treated equally.

After the end of World War 1, many companies had gained wealth from having a mass increase in the work that had to be done in their company. Also from the amount of debt they were owed from other countries. This help to create a great improvement in wealth. As well as many companies started investing their money into the stock market. Where they helped provide money for smaller companies or business, but they could also collect money off of it too.

This is because smaller businesses were ruined by larger ones. George Rice, who was the owner of a smaller oil company, says in Document H that he was ruined by the Standard Oil Company because the big business was selling oil for lower prices. They could sell it at such low prices because

Standard Oil gained a monopoly in the oil industry by buying rival refineries and developing companies for distributing and marketing its products around the globe. In 1882, these various companies were combined into the Standard Oil Trust, which would control some 90 percent of the nation’s refineries and pipelines. Rockefeller retired from day-to-day business operations of Standard Oil in the mid-1890s. Inspired in part by fellow Gilded Age tycoon Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), who made a vast fortune in the steel industry then became a philanthropist and gave away the bulk of his money, Rockefeller donated more than half a billion dollars to various educational, religious and scientific causes. Among his activities, he funded the establishment of the University of Chicago and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller

1.The robber barons were Andrew Carnegie JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. These individuals were known as robber barons because they were eliminating competition by high pricing and overcharging while managing their monopoly. 2. Trunk lines were four major railroad networks that emerged after the civil war which connected eastern sea ports to western rivers as well as great lakes. The federal government loaned $65 million to western railroads and donated millions of acres.

The Standard Oil Company owned by John D. Rockefeller had a huge restriction on trade, resulting in violation of the Sherman Antitrust

The Gilded Age was a time of good and bad economic growth. In America during post civil war times, years 1870 to 1900, the nation was prospering on the surface, but was corrupt underneath; large businesses took control of the economy, changed society, and influenced politics nefariously. By the end of the nineteenth century, monopolies and trusts exercised a significant degree of control over key aspects of the American economy. Carnegie used vertical integration to take over the steel industry. He then set up a mega trust with Rockefeller, who was in the gas and oil industry, JP Morgan, who was a banker, and Vanderbilt, who was high up in the railroad industry.