1. THE RISE OF THE TRUSTS

2. Rush to Merge into GIANT Companies As companies and industries grew there was a movement to merge companies together  this allowed for companies to streamline and become more productive/more successful Horizontal Integration = several small companies that do same thing combine to form one large company Vertical Integration = a company owns all of the things needed for production from raw material to finished product to retail

3. The Monopoly and the Trust Monopolies have been around for a very long time The word monopoly comes from Greek monos (single) polein (to sell)  one company controls an entire market  many monopolies in the U.S. were government sponsored (i.e. the railroads, utilities like electricity) Trusts also grew during this time period  several companies would merge together under the control of a single management  companies still owned by individual owners but they were controlled by a central body  they could use the single Trust to undercut competition

4. Internal Deliberation Time What are the concerns people have with Monopolies? What are the specific dangers that Monopolies pose to:  the employees of these businesses?  the products that the businesses produce?  the consumers for these businesses? Can Monopolies by good for most everybody involved? If so how?

5. Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel John D. Rockefeller was the founder of Standard Oil  this company came to dominate the oil industry  Rockefeller did use ruthless tactics to buy out competitors  often Rockefeller was trying to get rid of inferior competition who put out inferior product Andrew Carnegie founded what became Carnegie Steel in 1875 near Pittsburg  he managed to buy up other local steel mills over the next 15 years  Carnegie was able to come to dominate the U.S. steel industry and sold his company to JP Morgan in 1901 for $480 million

6. The Anti-Trust Movement Trusts were simply monopolies and many said that they were bad  some trusts were bad  many trusts were beneficial in that they used their resources to make better cheaper products Sherman Anti-Trust Act 1890 the Sherman Anti-Trust Act is created  goal was to target “bad” trusts and create more competition  some said it would prevent Trusts from charging artificially high prices  some said that this would stifle innovation by breaking up and punishing the big guys (or gals if you so prefer)