Midwest Holiday 1952 Standard Oil Company of Indiana (Amoco)

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‘Auto travelogue through the sights, monuments and mythologies of America’s heartland. A jaded newspaper reporter returns from a long stint in Europe, takes to the highways of the Midwest, and discovers a father-daughter team who help him to realize that his true home lies in mid-America. A fascinating view of Midwestern and Great Plains natural and historical attractions, and a strong statement that mobility equals freedom… PRESENTS THE MICHIGAN DUNES TO THE GRAND TETONS OF WYOMING. SHOWS MOUNT RUSHMORE IN S. DAK’S BLACK HILLS, MINNESOTA’S IRON RANGE, LINCOLN’S HOME, TOM SAWYER’S HABITAT & MANY OTHER BEAUTIFUL SCENES IN 10 MIDWESTERN STATES.’

Public domain film from the Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

Standard Oil Co. Inc. was an American oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world. Its controversial history as one of the world’s first and largest multinational corporations ended in 1911, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that Standard was an illegal monopoly.

Standard Oil dominated the oil products market initially through horizontal integration in the refining sector, then, in later years vertical integration; the company was an innovator in the development of the business trust. The Standard Oil trust streamlined production and logistics, lowered costs, and undercut competitors. “Trust-busting” critics accused Standard Oil of using aggressive pricing to destroy competitors and form a monopoly that threatened consumers.

John D. Rockefeller was a founder, chairman and major shareholder. With the dissolution of the Standard Oil trust into 33 smaller companies, Rockefeller became the richest man in the world. Other notable Standard Oil principals include Henry Flagler, developer of the Florida East Coast Railway and resort cities, and Henry H. Rogers, who built the Virginian Railway…

Standard Oil began as an Ohio partnership formed by the well-known industrialist John D. Rockefeller, his brother William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, chemist Samuel Andrews, silent partner Stephen V. Harkness, and Oliver Burr Jennings, who had married the sister of William Rockefeller’s wife. In 1870 Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil in Ohio. Of the initial 10,000 shares, John D. Rockefeller received 2,667; Harkness received 1,334; William Rockefeller, Flagler, and Andrews received 1,333 each; Jennings received 1,000; and the firm of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler received 1,000. Using highly effective tactics, later widely criticized, it absorbed or destroyed most of its competition in Cleveland in less than two months in 1872 and later throughout the northeastern United States…

In 1885, Standard Oil of Ohio moved its headquarters from Cleveland to its permanent headquarters at 26 Broadway in New York City. Concurrently, the trustees of Standard Oil of Ohio chartered the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey (SOCNJ) to take advantages of New Jersey’s more lenient corporate stock ownership laws.

Also in 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act — a source of American anti-monopoly laws. The law forbade every contract, scheme, deal, or conspiracy to restrain trade, though the phrase “restraint of trade” remained subjective…

In 1911, the US Justice Department sued the group under the federal antitrust law and ordered its breakup into 39 companies…