Sublime

Best-practice steam engine technology could have saved the equivalent of a quarter of labor costs at most plants. Inefficient furnaces were oxidizing away huge amounts of metal. The Germans were pulling ahead in the use of overhead belt conveyors. It was absurdly wasteful to support 119 rail-shape standards. Better management of furnace linings,

Potts’s ambitions were unbounded: he believed that fast-freight companies, by controlling transshipping points, loading facilities, and specialized carriers like tank cars, could emerge as the freight balancer and rate-setter for all railroad traffic. The cross-ownership with the Pennsylvania ensured that the Empire’s facilities were designed to

The Standard’s commitment to long-distance pipelines was the beginning of the end of the railroads’ dominant role in petroleum transport. Rockefeller began to negotiate what were effectively reverse-rebate arrangements, guaranteeing the roads minimum returns for maintaining their oil-shipping facilities whether or not he used them. The last step in

In the investigation of 1879, when the producers were trying to find out the real nature of the Standard alliance, they were much puzzled by the sworn testimony of certain Standard men that the factories they controlled were competing, and competing hard, with the Standard Oil Co. of Cleveland. How could this be? Being bitter of heart and reckless

Rockefeller also may have been unique among oil executives for his understanding of distribution. Kerosene—illuminating oil—was arguably the first global consumer product. (Grain markets were global, of course, but grain was usually processed locally into flour or bread before being sold to consumers.) Rockefeller pursued tightly integrated