At the beginning of the 20th century Standard Oil Co. was one of the world’s largest and most powerful corporations and its chairman, John D. Rockefeller, was the first billionaire. While people were divided about whether monopolies were good for society, exposés by the muckraker Ida Tarbell detailing the company’s strong-arm practices against rivals, railroad companies and others eventually turned public opinion against it. In 1911 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Standard Oil Trust be dissolved under the Sherman Antitrust Act and split into 34 companies. Read more about it!

The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.

The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.