Monopolies and Trusts of the Gilded Age

Monopolies and Trusts of the Gilded Age

Works Cited

What is the Gilded Age?

The Gilded Age was an era of a dramatic inflammation in the economy for both the North and South in the United States.

The cause of this was the spread of industrialization that boosted American wages by 60%, increasing work force.

Mark Twain called it the Gilded Age because ¨it glittered on the surface, but was corrupt underneath.¨

Mintz, S., & McNeil, S. (2016). ¨Overview of the Gilded Age¨. Digital History. 16 October 2016.

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John D. Rockefeller. Digital image. Bio. A&E Television Networks, LL, n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

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Progression

The Gilded Age was a notable time for when American society transformed from small producers to a large urban society that had been taken over by industrial corporations.

The late 1800s became introduced to modern industrial economies.

The U.S. Steel Corporation

John Pierpont Morgan

The steel merger came to form the largest company in the world. It came to be due to the trust movement and the greatest financier of the Gilded Age John Pierpont Morgan.

Morgan was affiliated with the Federal Steel Company and the National Tube Company.

He managed to bring together big names in his steel trust: -Carnegie Company

-The Moore Group

-Gates' American Steel & Wire Company

-Rockefeller's iron ore properties in the Mesabi range

Economies=Monopolies

Havemeyers in Sugar Refining

The Havemayers were already very wealthy when they became involved in sugar refineries to expand their fortune.

Henry Osborne Havemeyer consolidated the sugar industry under his American Sugar Refining Company in 1891.

The Sugar Trust controlled 98% of US sugar production. Thereafter it came under litigation with the US government and was forced to give up control of its member firms.

With the rise of urban cities and increase in industrialization, there came desires and visions for success in urban businesses.

The Civil War had a big impact on America, allowing it to mature from rural lands to an urban nation.

War needs had accelerated manufacturing which sped the exploitation of iron, steam and electric power.

James Buchanan Duke and The American Tobacco Company

"Four Monopolies"

Duke was supported

powerful group of Northern financiers.

Names include :

-William Collins Whitney

-Thomas Fortune Ryan

-Peter A. B. Widener

-Anthony N. Brady

-Oliver Hazard Payne (treasurer of Standard Oil)

THE END

The company was founded in 1990 and grew mostly due to investment but eventually ended up controlling most of the tobacco industry in the U.S.A.

-The Continental Tobacco Company controlled the plug tobacco sector.

-The American Snuff Company and the American Cigar Company controlled their respective segments of the tobacco trade.

These companies were combined to create Consolidated Tobacco Company of New Jersey in 1901.

-Through this, the British American Tobacco Company was formed to go into foreign markets.

-The Havana Tobacco Company was formed to control the cigar supplies from that Caribbean island.

It was observed by American individualist Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1854–1939) that there are four specific monopolies that essentially set the basis for the economy of the Gilded Age.

These Big Four monopolies are:

-The Land Monopoly

-The Money Monopoly

-The Patent Monopoly

-The Protectionist Monopoly

BY KELSEY GALARZA

John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil

The Land Monopoly

The Money Monopoly

Any and all legally uninhabited land was taken over by the government. Their military even seized land from Indians and Mexicans.

With all this new land in their possession, the government monopolized the economy and accessibility in land.

Since 1888, governments have nationalized oil, natural gas, and water resources.

Mining rights and fossil fuel exploration are heavily dependent on government licenses since the government owns about 50% of the West.

Rockefeller was the first American to reach over a billion dollars in profit due to his founding of Standard Oil.

His Standrd Oil Company came to own 90% of the nation's oil refining capacity.

Rockefeller monopolized all essential oil transportation infrastructures, with its pipeline network, tank car fleet and secret railroad rebates.

In order to succeed monopolizing the oil industry, he teamed up with Charles Lockhart (Pittsburg), William Gray Warden (Philadelphia), Charles Pratt and Jabez Bostwick (New York) and J.N. Camden (West Virginia).

Due to this alliance or trust, Standard Oil became so successful that it coined the nickname "Mother of Trusts."

TRUSTS

John D. Rockefeller

“the privilege given by the government to certain individuals . . . holding certain kinds of property, of issuing the circulating medium”

The government monopolized the currency of the nation through:

- manipulation of supply

-banning other forms of currency

-cartelizing banking, money, and credit

The control of money secured profits for insulated banks and economic ownership for established business and banks.

The Patent Monopoly

The term "trusts" was used to describe the "legal situation, which forbid corporations from owning other companies or assets in other states."

"It notably appeared as the legal form, the Standard Oil alliance took in 1882, to unite its shareholders since it couldn't merge its constituent companies. "

Most American industries conformed to the trust movement, many of them during the 1890's.

Many monopolies actually were protected by patents and copyrights,

The amount of patents issued for media, technology, and scientific inventions soared from 440,00 to nearly a million by 1925.

"Intellectual property"(IP) was a legal monopoly against competition that could replicate the monopolists' inventions for a reduced price.

The Protectionist Monopoly

"Tucker identified the protectionist tariff as a monopoly in the sense that it insulated politically favored domestic producers from foreign competition, and thus ratcheted up daily costs for consumers."

Tariffs had been decreasing due to the presence of multinational corporations and neoliberal trade agreement.