The Rise of Industrial Capitalism (College Board AP® US History): Exam Questions

“I asked Mr. Rockefeller how he came to conceive the idea of forming the Standard Oil Company … “We were not really the first to adopt the combination idea … The Western Union Telegraph people had begun to buy up two or three small telegraph lines and add them to their system. The Standard Oil Company was less the fruit of an idea than an outgrowth of necessity. The oil business was so demoralized that nearly every refinery was threatened with bankruptcy. Prices were below cost of production. Competition had been very keen, not to say cruel… Something had to be done if the industry was to be saved …I wrote our largest competitor asking if he would meet me at a certain time and place … We talked over the whole oil situation. He realized that heroic measures would be necessary to prevent general ruin. He then agreed to sell his property at a fair valuation and to come in with us. After that other properties were acquired in the same way." 

B.C. Forbes, Men Who Are Making America, 1917

The business model expressed in the excerpt would have been supported by

“I asked Mr. Rockefeller how he came to conceive the idea of forming the Standard Oil Company … “We were not really the first to adopt the combination idea … The Western Union Telegraph people had begun to buy up two or three small telegraph lines and add them to their system. The Standard Oil Company was less the fruit of an idea than an outgrowth of necessity. The oil business was so demoralized that nearly every refinery was threatened with bankruptcy. Prices were below cost of production. Competition had been very keen, not to say cruel… Something had to be done if the industry was to be saved …I wrote our largest competitor asking if he would meet me at a certain time and place … We talked over the whole oil situation. He realized that heroic measures would be necessary to prevent general ruin. He then agreed to sell his property at a fair valuation and to come in with us. After that other properties were acquired in the same way." 

B.C. Forbes, Men Who Are Making America, 1917

Which event most directly contributed to the growth of multinational corporations abroad in the Gilded Age?

Which of the following industrial developments resulted in the success of the product shown in the image?

The product shown in the image most directly reflects which of the following production processes in the Gilded Age?