Monopolies and Trust-Busting
Henry Ford
1863-1947. American businessman, founder of Ford Motor Company, father of modern assembly lines.
President Theodore Roosevelt
26th president, known for: conservationism, trust-busting, safe food regulations, "Square Deal," Panama Canal, Great White Fleet, Nobel Peace Prize for negotiation of peace in Russo-Japanese War
Andrew Carnegie
A Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist who founded the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892. By 1901, his company dominated the American steel industry.
Trust
A group of corporations run by a single board of directors (similar to a monopoly)
Ida Tarbell
A leading muckraker and magazine editor, she exposed the corruption of the oil industry with her 1904 work A History of Standard Oil.
Anti-competitive practices
An attempt by a company to prevent or restrict competition
Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
Created to regulate the railroad industry and stop its monopolistic practices. Required that railroad rates be fair.
Rebates
Developed in the 1880s, a practice by which railroads would give money back to its favored customers, rather than charging them lower prices, so that it could appear to be charging a flat rate for everyone.
Trust Busting
Government activities aimed at breaking up monopolies and trusts.
Standard Oil Company
John D. Rockefeller's company, formed in 1870, which came to symbolize the trusts and monopolies of the Gilded Age.
Monopoly
One seller - when one company controls the market for a specific service or product.
Robber Barons
Refers to the industrialists or big business owners who gained huge profits by paying their employees extremely low wages. They also drove their competitors out of business by selling their products cheaper than it cost to produce it. Then when they controlled the market, they hiked prices high above original price.
Elkins Act (1903)
Strengthened the *Interstate Commerce Act* by imposing heavy fines on railroads offering rebates and on the shippers accepting them
American Tobacco v. US
Supreme Court ruling that declared the American Tobacco company to be a monopoly and ordered it to be dissolved into smaller, competing companies
Standard Oil of N.J. v. United States (1911)
This case allowed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to break up Standard Oil into separate companies, all in competition with one another, effectively lowering prices.
Industrialist
a person whose wealth comes from the ownership of industrial businesses
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
an 1890 law that banned the formation of trusts and monopolies in the United States
laissez-faire capitalism
an economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately owned and operated for profit with minimal or no government interference
Regulations
another name for rules
Captain of Industry
description given to industrialists like Andrew Carnegie who did great things for business and the country.
Social Darwinism
the belief held by some in the late 19th century that certain nations and races were superior to others and therefore destined to rule over them; "survival of the fittest"
regulate
to control with rules