"Standard Oil in Europe: European States and American Market Power, 1890-1930"

Standard Oil was a quintessential American company. By 1900 it was the largest industrial enterprise in the United States, a position that had been achieved not the least through inventive strategies towards collaboration and competition (for instance through the creation of the corporate trust form). The company heavily influenced business practices in the US, but through its heavy-handed operations it also provoked public outcry and ultimately political response. This US story is well known. Yet, Standard Oil had by the end of the 19th century become a global company which was as dominant overseas as it was at home. Consequently, its operations affected business life all over the world, not just in the US, and it was not just in the US that the company was publically debated or encountered political response.
The aim of this paper is to study the operations of Standard Oil in Europe and the public and political response that the company encountered in the different states of the continent. The paper will focus on the period from the last part of the 19th century, when Standard Oil built up a network of subsidiary companies in most countries in Europe, and until around 1930. The paper is based on access to original source material from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the US (papers from Standard Oil subsidiaries, from the ExxonMobile collection, government sources), in addition to the existing secondary literature from a number of countries in Europe. Employing a comparative perspective, the paper will investigate the following main research questions: how did Standard Oil achieve market dominance in the different European countries, and what kind of public and political responses did the market power of the company trigger in Europe?