The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age

by Tim Wu

it also led to the passage of the first antitrust law, the Sherman Act, enacted in 1890, during the first furious wave of reactions to the rise of the trusts. The law was named after its original sponsor, Senator John Sherman, an Ohio Republican who was the younger brother of the Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman. While it was clear that the law was meant to address the “Trust Problem,” like many laws, the reasons stated for its passage were many and varied, reflecting a then-recent debate over tariff policy, as well as the interests of small producers, farmers, and others, as modified by the usual dealmaking and compromises. The language of the law is extremely broad. In section one it bans “every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise … in restraint of trade.” In section two it declares that “every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize … any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony.”