Product Description

A titan of industry, John D. Rockefeller (1839 – 1937) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful businessmen of the Gilded Age. In 1870. he founded Standard Oil along with his brother William Rockefeller and Henry Flager, and in less than a decade they gained a monopoly in the oil industry by buying rival refineries and developing companies to distribute his product globally. In 1882 they combined these companies to create Standard Oil Trust, a conglomerate that controlled more than 90 percent of U.S. refineries and pipelines.
Muckraking journalists criticized the tactics with which the ‘robber baron” built his empire. In 1937. The New York Times reported: “He was accused of crushing out competition, getting rich on rebates from railroads, bribing men to spy on competing companies. of making secret agreements, of coercing rivals to join the Standard Oil Company under threat of being forced out of business, building up enormous fortunes on the ruins of other men. and so on.”
In 1911. the U.S. Supreme Court found Standard Oil in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act (passed in 1890) and ordered the break-up of the oil colossus into 34 companies. some of which became the modem day Exxon. Amoco. Mobil and Chevron. During his life. Rockefeller donated more than half a billion dollars to various philanthropic causes. and funded the establishment of the University of Chicago and Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Henry Morrison (H.M.) Flagler (1830 – 1913) was an American industrialist, and co-founder of Standard Oil with Rockefeller. After relocating to Florida’s only accessible city. Jacksonville, to alleviate his ailing first wife. Flagler decided to pour his oil fortune into the state’s development. He went on to found what would later become the Florida East Coast Railroad. and was instrumental in the development of the state’s coastline, namely Miami. and the city of Palm Beach.
We have a limited number of these original Standard Oil Trust stock certificates. Each was issued in October 1886 and measures 7.75″ x 12″ and bears an engraved vignette of the Capitol Dome and the U.S. Treasury Building. The certificate will arrive in a clear. acid-free envelope.
Originality guaranteed with a certificate of authenticity from The Caren Archive. a leading source of significant historic printed matter.