The Truth about the Trusts. A Description and Analysis of the American Trust Movement

Mergers and acquisitions: a cyclical and legal phenomenon

“…These combinations were in select industries such as oil, sugar, and steel, and were for the most part horizontal (that is, in the same industry), resulting in a highly concentrated industry. John Moody calculated that during this wave, roughly 5,300 industrial sites were consolidated into just 318 industrial trusts (Moody 1904 period, Standard Oil of New Jersey consolidated the oil industry, and U.S. Steel, at the behest of J.P. Morgan, consolidated the steel industry; they each controlled over three-quarters of their respective industries.…”

Villains or Heroes? Private Banks and Railroads after the Sherman Act

“…But on this particular occasion they were arguing like attorneys for a bad case, and at the bottom of their hearts each would know this if he were not personally interested; and especially, if he were not the representative of a man so strong and dominant a character as Pierpont Morgan. In plain 38 Commercial and Financial Chronicle, 3/27/1886, cited in Moody (1904), p. 443. In the end, Morgan convinced the presidents and tra c managers of the Philadelphia & Reading, the Delaware, the Lackawanna & Western, the Lehigh Valley, and the Delaware and Hudson railroads to "manage" the anthracite coal tra c. Chandler (1977) believed that banks gave up on their attempts to cartelize after the Sherman Act was enacted in 1890.…”

“…Nonetheless, a careful analysis of the data in this paper indicates that private banks added between 6 and 7 percent of value due to better governance. The fourth criticism against banks was first made by Moody (1904) and later repeated in the Pujo Hearings in 1912 and by Brandeis (1914). This was that private banks stifled non-financial competition, a result confirmed by Cantillo (1998).…”

Corporate Law Federalism in Historical Context: Comparing Canada and the United States

“…See e.g. Naomi R Lamoreaux, The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895-1904(Cambridge, Mass: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Although historians invariably describe this movement in terms of "mergers", relatively few transactions of the period were mergers (or amalgamations) in the legal sense.…”