Standard Oil

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Standard Oil Company was a corporate trust in the petroleum industry that existed from 1882 to 1911. The origins of the trust lay in the operations of the Standard Oil Company (Ohio), which was founded in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller. The trust was born on January 2, 1882, when a group of 41 investors signed the Standard Oil Trust Agreement which pooled their securities of 40 companies into a single holding agency managed by nine trustees. The original trust was valued at $70 million. On March 21, 1892, the Standard Oil Trust was dissolved by order of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and its holdings were reorganized into 20 independent companies that formed an unofficial union referred to as "Standard Oil Interests." In 1899, the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (Jersey Standard) acquired the shares of the other 19 companies and became the holding company for the trust. Jersey Standard operated a near monopoly in the American oil industry from 1899 until 1911 and was the largest corporation...

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