✍️ How Words Destroy a Monopoly

Hey—It’s Mohammad.

Changing things up this week. Got a new topic, new book to read, and a new story about the power of words.

Read Time: 3.4 minutes

It’s 1911 and the richest company in the US was about to be taken down.

Not by any competitor. No storm had destroyed their businesses. Not even Nature could stop the giant known as Standard Oil.

Standard Oil was J.D. Rockefeller’s company. He built it from the ground up and through a series of strategic moves grew it to control 90% of US oil production.

He was untouchable.

That is, until Ida Tarbell published her articles on Standard Oil’s Business practices.

The articles destroyed Standard Oil’s monopoly. The US Supreme Court ruled they broke Antitrust laws and forced Rockefeller to break up the company.

Standard Oil is gone and dissolved into 34 companies —including Chevron and ExxonMobil—reducing its influence over the market and production.

Ida Tarbell’s articles were damaging.

She didn’t write to destroy Rockefeller, instead she gathered evidence over 2 years of research. From interviewing hundreds of sources and getting access to documents, she found

• Railroad corruption

• Strong-arm tactics

• Predatory pricing

• Secret deals

Clear evidence Standard Oil was intentionally suppressing competition and controlling the market.

But what made her writing powerful?

She wrote for regular people

There was public unrest regarding Standard Oil. Tarbell needed the public on her side to get anything done. She used simple language anyone could understand.

With a company as large as Standard Oil, she focused on singular people: executives who made backdoor deals, the people who lost their lives and homes because of the business practices.

She stuck to facts

In 1872, Tarbell’s father loses his business because of Standard Oil. Rockefeller cut a deal with the railroads and forced the other businesses to make a choice: sell your business to Standard Oil or get crushed. Her father fuses to sell, loses the businesses, and their house.

Tarbell could’ve made this an emotionally charged story, but she didn’t need to. The facts and human stories spoke for themselves. She had evidence of predatory practices, spying on independent refiners, and manipulating distribution. She let the evidence speak for itself.

She wrote it as a series.

Tarbell didn’t write 1 article. She wrote 19, and a book. Even a character study of J.D Rockefeller. Each article revealed more information. Like a compelling newsletter, the public wanted to hear more.

For today’s writer,

We tend to focus on vanity metrics of likes, shares, and impressions, but we forget about impact. We focus on superficial writing and forget depth.

If we want our writing to incite real change, we need to have depth. We need to tell human stories, gathering evidence, make complex things simple, and keep releasing consistently.

Remember: Our words are more powerful than you think.

See you next Saturday
— Mohammad

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