5 Most Famous Monopolies Of All Time

2. Andrew Carnegie’s Steel Company

It is now known as the US Steel Company (NYSE:X) and is the reason behind Andrew Carnegie being the second richest person in history after only J.D. Rockefeller. When his Carnegie Steel Company merged with the Federal Steel Company and the National Steel Company, this resulted in the formation of a major monopoly which in turn became the largest producer of steel in the entire world and absolutely dominated the US steel industry. In fact, it became the first billion dollar company in the entire world, when it was valued at $1.4 billion. A billion dollar corporation is not a big deal in today’s world, but more than a century ago, this was a huge deal. In 1911, the government tried to break the company based on anti-trust laws, but failed initially. It even produced around 60% of the total steel production in the US at the time, though this fell to just 6% in 2001.

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