US Oil History

The first successful oil well in North America was established in Oil Springs, Ontario, Canada in 1858. ... Petroleum became a major industry following the oil discovery at Oil Creek Pennsylvania in 1859. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the US was the largest oil producing country in the world.

John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), founder of the Standard Oil Company, born into modest circumstances in upstate New York, he entered the then-fledgling oil business in 1863 by investing in a Cleveland, Ohio, refinery.

Standard Oil Co. Inc. was an American oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company established in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refinery in the world of its time. Its history as one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations ended in 1911, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a landmark case, that Standard Oil was an illegal monopoly.

Standard Oil dominated the oil products market initially through horizontal integration in the refining sector, then, in later years vertical integration; the company was an innovator in the development of the business trust. The Standard Oil trust streamlined production and logistics, lowered costs, and undercut competitors. "Trust-busting" critics accused Standard Oil of using aggressive pricing to destroy competitors and form a monopoly that threatened other businesses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil

The Sherman Act is the nation's oldest antitrust law. Passed in 1890, it makes it illegal for competitors to make agreements with each other that would limit competition. ... But some companies discovered merging as a way to control prices and production (instead of forming trusts, competitors united into a single company.

Comments

This was the beginning of the war on free market, private sector capitalism promoted by Communists in the US aided by misinterpretation by the Supreme Court. Congress went on to implement Income Tax and Inheritance Tax in 1913. All of this was the result of our success in implementing the Industrial Revolution. That success proved that Karl Marx was wrong, so the Communists blamed the companies for their success.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader