The use of petroleum products in industry as well as for domestic heating and lighting became the cornerstone of the most powerful of the new industries of the period. The trolley car, led to the increased use of gas and electric power. The telephone led to the establishment of important public utilities that were natural monopolies and could operate only on the basis of franchises granted by state or municipal governments. The widespread employment of the corporate form of business organization offered new opportunities for large-scale financing of business enterprise and attracted new capital, much of it furnished by European investors.

             Laissez-faire capitalism ruled the day during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. In this atmosphere of unbridled moneymaking, numerous types of business organizations gave rise to Big Business. Around the end of the 17th century, there emerged a colorful and energetic group of entrepreneurs who appeared to symbolize a new class of leadership in the United States. Of this group the best known were John D. Rockefeller in oil, Andrew Carnegie in steel, and such railroad builders and promoters as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Henry Villard, and James J. Hill. .

             A trend emerged toward the consolidation of competing firms into large units capable of dominating an entire industry. The movement toward consolidation received special attention in 1882 when Rockefeller and his associates organized the Standard Oil Trust. A trust was a new type of industrial organization, in which the voting rights of a controlling number of shares of competing firms were entrusted to a small group of trustees. These trustees were able to prevent competition among the companies they controlled. For a few years the trust was a popular vehicle for the creation of monopolies, and by 1890 there were trusts in whiskey, lead, cottonseed oil, and salt.