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Antitrust 1: Standard Oil

By Kenny Malone,
Kenny Malone, Julia Simon
Published February 15, 2019 at 3:20 PM CST
Harris & Ewing
/
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

Today on the show, we're launching a three part series on antitrust law, one of the most important but least-understood bodies of law in the United States.

For this first episode in the series, we're starting at the very beginning, in the nineteenth century, with the story of John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. We go to Titusville, Pennsylvania, and retrace the steps of muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell as she uncovers the back room deals struck by Rockefeller, then one of the world's richest men. Tarbell's investigative reporting in the early 1900s inspired a court case that helped change the design of the American economy.

Music: "Cold Heart" and "What I Need."

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Kenny Malone
Kenny Malone hails from Meadville, PA where the zipper was invented, where Clark Gable’s mother is buried and where, in 2007, a wrecking ball broke free from a construction site, rolled down North Main Street and somehow wound up inside the trunk of a Ford Taurus sitting at a red light.
See stories by Kenny Malone
Kenny Malone
Kenny Malone is a correspondent for NPR's Planet Money podcast. Before that, he was a reporter for WNYC's Only Human podcast. Before that, he was a reporter for Miami's WLRN. And before that, he was a reporter for his friend T.C.'s homemade newspaper, Neighborhood News.
Julia Simon
Julia Simon is the Climate Solutions reporter on NPR's Climate Desk. She covers the ways governments, businesses, scientists and everyday people are working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She also works to hold corporations, and others, accountable for greenwashing.