Standard Oil Trust

The First Monopoly of America

http://74365165.nhd.weebly.com

Nathan Reagan, Mostofa Hisham, Darling Hernadez unior Di!ision "roup #e$site

%ecause our initial interest &as in consumer protection, $ut &e realized the topic &as too $road to thoroughly research, &e $egan to narro& our focus into antitrust la&s' (pon researching the most prominent cases, &e found that many of the early acts, such as the Sherman and )layton Acts, &ere directed to&ards monopolies, and that one corporation in particular instigated the founding of these* Standard Oil' Through a $etter understanding of the early oil $usiness and the impact of Standard Oil, &e concluded that Standard Oil &as an interesting topic that also tied &ell &ith the theme' #e started our research $y familiarizing oursel!es &ith the topic, so &e scoured &e$sites for any facts pertaining to the topic' After getting a $asic understanding of the history of the Standard Oil )ompany, &e then created a document to hold and categorize the general information' This helped us to form a small outline and +no& e,actly &hat to research for future reference' #e then narro&ed our research to +ey indi!iduals &hom &ere rele!ant to $oth the creation and destruction of Standard Oil' -da Tar$ell.s The History of the Standard Oil Company pro!ided an in/depth first hand account of the monopoly at the pea+ of its reign, and further $rought the issues &ith their $usiness tactics to perspecti!e' Due to the lac+ of images and surplus of information, &e decided that a &e$site &ould $e the $est method of portraying our +no&ledge of the topic' The &e$site also allo&ed for more interacti!e displays of information, &hich &as necessary for the timeline' %y starting &ith categories, this allo&ed for us to determine the su$categories, &hich ser!ed as a $lueprint for researching the crucial information &hile disregarding the unimportant facts' #e then $egan adding the te,t &hich &e found to $e the most rele!ant to the topic, and then completed the research portion $y filling the pages &ith supplements, such as pictures and 0uotes' To enhance the structure of the &e$site, &e added the

timeline, as &ell as enhancing it to $e more !isually appealing' Our topic tied to the NHD theme $y the fact that Standard Oil had disregarded the rights of other $usinesses to ha!e the chance to compete for economic prosperity, and the rights of people to ha!e freedom in their choice in their oil pro!ider' This also stressed the responsi$ility of )ongress to ensure fair competition for all trades, and to also stop monopolies from rising' Also, since the Standard Oil )ompany had the po&er to modulate oil prices, they could set a price !ery high in order to ma,imize profit, $ut then they &ill $e $reaching consumer rights, since the consumers ha!e no po&er to re$el against the prices gi!en $y a monopoly'