Company
DissolvedStandard Oil
Cleveland, then New York · 1870 – 1911
The U.S. Supreme Court broke the trust into 34 companies in 1911. ExxonMobil and Chevron are descendants.
John D. Rockefeller and partners incorporated Standard Oil in Ohio in 1870. Refining, not drilling, was the business. The company bought its rivals, took rebates from railroads, and built pipelines so it would not have to ask the railroads' permission.
By the 1880s a trust, and then a holding company in New Jersey, held the pieces. Standard refined, shipped, and sold most of the oil used in the United States. It also employed a new kind of staff: the accountant and the rate clerk who made a national market visible from one office.
Order inside one industry
The barrel, the tank car, and the weekly report were the tools. Standard's managers knew costs to a fraction of a cent and used that knowledge to underprice a rival until he sold. The jobs that grew were refinery operators, pipeline gangs, and the clerks of the combination. Independent refiners' jobs shrank. The company argued that it had replaced chaos with cheap kerosene. The people who had owned the chaos disagreed, and eventually so did the Supreme Court.
Thirty-four pieces
In 1911 the Court ordered the trust dissolved under the Sherman Act. Standard Oil of New Jersey, the largest piece, became Exxon. Standard of New York became Mobil. Standard of California became Chevron. The 1870 company ended. Its descendants are still among the largest firms in this catalogue, which is why the Standard Oil page points at ExxonMobil and does not pretend the breakup was the end of the business.
The work it organized
- Refinery operator
- Rate clerk
- Pipeline walker
- Sales agent
On the timeline
Related
- ExxonMobilActive