Standard Oil broken up
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States (May 15, 1911), ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil into 34 separate companies. The successors included Standard Oil of New Jersey (later Exxon), Standard Oil of New York (later Mobil), Standard Oil of California (later Chevron), Standard Oil of Indiana (later Amoco), Atlantic Refining (later ARCO), and Continental Oil (later Conoco). Rockefeller's personal wealth roughly doubled in the months after the breakup as the constituent companies' shares were freed to trade individually — the first dramatic illustration that breaking up a conglomerate often raises its market value. The 'Seven Sisters' that would dominate global oil for the next sixty years were nearly all spun out of this single court order.
Of the original 34 successor companies, more than half eventually merged back together over the following century — Exxon and Mobil reunited in 1999, Standard of California absorbed Standard of Kentucky and Gulf, and the modern five 'supermajors' (ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, TotalEnergies) trace direct corporate lineage to Standard Oil's 1911 breakup. The trust came back, just under different names.
03 · Black Gold
Oil arrived as a curiosity — a medicine, a lamp fuel, a substitute for whale oil — and within fifty years had become the most strategic commodity on Earth. The first commercial well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. By 1911 a single American family controlled most of the world's refined oil. By 1914 the British Royal Navy had switched from coal to oil at Churchill's insistence, and the country with the best oil reserves was no longer Britain. The 20th century is, in plain economic terms, the century the energy capital moved from Tyneside to Texas — and from Texas, eventually, to Riyadh.
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