May 15, 1911

Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States

Supreme Court orders the Standard Oil combination dissolved

The Court ordered America's dominant oil combination broken apart — and in the same decree refused to stop it selling oil while the breakup proceeded.

Affirmed, with more time

On 15 May 1911, in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, the Supreme Court affirmed a federal circuit-court decree holding that Standard Oil's centralised stock ownership was an unlawful restraint of trade and an attempt to monopolise under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The Court upheld dissolution through the transfer of subsidiary stock away from Standard Oil of New Jersey and barred the participants from recreating the combination. It also extended the compliance period from 30 days to at least six months.

And it removed the provision that would have stopped Standard and its subsidiaries from conducting interstate commerce while dissolution was pending, so the petroleum supply would not be disrupted. Nothing split apart on 15 May itself.

The rule of reason arrives

Chief Justice Edward Douglass White's principal opinion applied the "rule of reason", reading the Sherman Act as prohibiting undue or unreasonable restraints rather than every conceivable restraint of trade.

Justice John Marshall Harlan agreed that Standard Oil had violated the Act but objected in a separate opinion to introducing that interpretation.

The decision was at once a major antitrust victory and the source of the more permissive rule-of-reason doctrine.

The company list in the listing

Thirty-four is the conventional count of independent companies after the breakup, the figure the Library of Congress uses; the decree itself found 38 corporate defendants — Standard Oil of New Jersey plus 37 controlled companies. Totals of 33, 34, 38 and 39 all circulate, depending on what is counted.

Exxon, Mobil and Chevron were not names in existence in 1911; they are later descendants or brands of Jersey Standard, Socony and Standard Oil of California. Texaco was founded independently in 1901 and was never a Standard Oil breakup company, though it merged with Chevron decades later.

The article the corpus carries under this date is about the European Central Bank and has no factual connection to Standard Oil, the Sherman Act or this decision.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 7 sources not yet audited

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

Sources use different totals—often 33, 34, 38 or 39—because they count the parent, subsidiaries, dismissed defendants and resulting independent entities differently. The Library of Congress uses the conventional figure of 34 independent companies.
Modern names such as Exxon, Mobil and Chevron did not exist in 1911; they are later corporate descendants or brands.