nt thatwas converting the United States into an industrial nation. Itattracted less attention, however, than the trend toward theconsolidation of competing firms into large units capable ofdominating an entire industry. The movement toward consolidationreceived special attention in 1882 when Rockefeller and hisassociates organized the Standard Oil Trust under the laws of Ohio.A trust was a new type of industrial organization, in which the votingrights of a controlling number of shares of competing firms wereentrusted to a small group of men, or trustees, who thus were ableto prevent competition among the companies they controlled. Thestockholders presumably benefited through the larger dividends theyreceived. For a few years the trust was a popular vehicle for thecreation of monopolies, and by 1890 there were trusts in whiskey,lead, cottonseed oil, and salt. (See Standard Oil Company andTrust.) In 1892 the courts of Ohio ruled that the trust violated that state'santimonopoly laws. Standard Oil then reincorporated as a holdingcompany under the more hospitable laws of New Jersey.Thereafter, holding companies or outright mergers became thefavourite forms for the creation of monopolies, though the term trustremained in the popular vocabulary as a common description of anymonopoly. The best-known mergers of the period were thoseleading to the formation of the American Tobacco Company (1890)and the American Sugar Refining Company (1891). The latter wasespecially successful in stifling competition, for it quickly gainedcontrol of most of the sugar refined in the United States.Foreign commerceThe foreign trade of the United States, if judged by the value ofexports, kept pace with the growth of domestic industry. Exclusiveof gold, silver, and reexports, the annual value of exports from theUnited States in 1877 was about $590,000,000; by 1900 it hadincreased to approximately $1,371,000,000. The value of importsalso rose, though at a slower rate. ...
