The Standard Oil Company

I am afraid this is a fairly short and disjointed post. The Standard Oil is rather a large octopus, and the following only a selection.

One of the earliest references to the Standard Oil “octopus” was in an article that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, in March 1881. ‘The Story of A Great Monopoly‘: “So closely had the Standard octopus gripped itself about Mr. Vanderbilt [railroads] that even at the outside rates its competitors could not get transportation from him.”¹

The name stuck. The representation of Standard Oil as an octopus continued. You can learn more about Standard Oil at Wikipedia. The Standard Oil octopus is one of a group that includes Rockefeller and the Railroads.

The first cartoon² is from 1880 which criticizes ‘the pollution of New York’s air by the Standard Oil plant in the Bronx. The company is depicted as “A HORRIBLE MONSTER, WHOSE TENTACLES SPREAD POVERTY, DISEASE AND DEATH”.’ and was published July 19th, 1880.

A HORRIBLE MONSTER, WHOSE TENTACLES SPREAD POVERTY, DISEASE AND DEATH (1880)

In 1904 Puck published an iconic cartoon “Next!”. It shows an oil tank/octopus hybrid with the name “Standard Oil” on the Tank. The octopus has arms “wrapped around the steel, copper, and shipping industries, as well as a state house, the U.S. Capitol, and one tentacle reaching for the White House.”³

Next! (1904)

In 1910 the Standard Oil Company published a pamphlet with a design that suggested an octopus:

Standard Oil Company, Roycroft Cover (1910)

The following is from Jackson, P., ‘Dard Hunter Stylized Octopus‘ (Accessed: 1st June 2009).

In 1910, John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company was battling efforts by the government to break up the huge organization, which contended that it was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Although the trust itself had been previously dissolved, the many different affiliates of the company still retained a monopoly in the oil industry. No doubt sensing the opportunity for some business, Elbert Hubbard wrote a piece in “The Fra” that praised the work of Standard Oil and defended it from the many words of criticism that it had been receiving. Of course, a business Little Journey soon followed, with Standard Oil commissioning a reprint of the article. Dard Hunter designed a special cover for the pamphlet, with artwork that bore a strange resemblance to an octopus. Symbolic of the company’s monopolistic stranglehold on the nation’s economy, this animal was used to depict Standard Oil in many a critical article and cartoon. Whether done as a joke, or as a statement of the artist’s true feelings about the company, the illustration was supposedly caught by Hubbard before the booklet went to press. He allowed it to be printed though, saying that the Standard Oil people would never notice. Evidently they didn’t notice, but it made no difference, as the Supreme Court ruled against the company the following year. Printed by the Roycrofters in East Aurora, New York in 1910.

The following is only indirectly related to Standard Oil:

Frenzied Lawson "Darn your big stick! Get a meat Ax!!" (ca 1906)

[Thomas W.] Lawson’s public feud with the “Standard Oil crowd” won him a reputation as a reformer. … Denver Post cartoon shows him battling an octopus with the head of John D. Rockefeller, even though John D. had had nothing to do with Bay State Gas, Amalgamated Copper, or Lawson’s other dealings with Henry Rogers.⁴

Standard Oil as a contortionist: Bradley, L.D. (3rd Feb 1909) “Before the Trojan horse is admitted the puzzled citizen will have to be shown a little more fully” Published in the Chicago Daily News. (This cartoon has been covered previously)

Trojan Horse (Bradley, 1909)

Footnotes

1. Lloyd, H.D. (1881), The Atlantic Monthly, http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/188103/monopoly/3 Accessed: 14th Mar 2009
2. Image source: Kovarik, W. ”Industrial Revolution: 1810 – 1890″ Environmental History Timeline http://www.runet.edu/~wkovarik/envhist/4industrial.html
3. Keppler, Udo J. (1904), “Next!” Puck, v. 56, no. 1436 (N.Y. : J. Ottmann Lith, Co.) 1904 Sept. 7. (Image source: LOC http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?pp/PPALL:@field(NUMBER+@1(cph+3b52184)) Accessed 1st June 2009)
4. Plazak, D. (2007) http://www.miningswindles.com/html/thomas_lawson.html (Accessed: 1st June 2009)