6 Images of Monopolies as Fantastic Beasts: HIST419X Midterm Project Main Menu

6 Images of Monopolies as Fantastic Beasts

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Woodrow Wilson's 1913 "Monopoly, or Opportunity" described monopolies and trusts as a kind of unnatural growth in the business world.  They were only natural in that they were birthed from inherent human greed and avarice, but such entities were not truly inevitable steps into corporate expansion and were not genuine progressions like other forms of big business.  

This collection of images builds on that notion of Wilson's; rather than just being unnatural in the eyes of many, however, they are depicted here as what humans perceive as abominations of nature - an octopus, a many-headed beast, a serpent to be slain.  Big trusts and monopolies, like mythical monsters, were frequently drawn as vicious creatures that starved for resources, parasitically preying on goods at the cost of innocents.  They often had many heads or legs, perhaps due to the number of collusion participants as well as the actual size of influence many monopolies afforded, and were impossible to defeat because they were constantly regenerating lost limbs. 

Every monster needs a hero to slay it, which can be seen in a few cartoons.  If not, it needs victims to prey upon.

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  1. 6 Images of Monopolies as Fantastic Beasts Georgia Jiang
  2. 6 Images of Monopolies as Fantastic Beasts Georgia Jiang

Contents of this path:

  1. 6 Images of Monopolies as Fantastic Beasts
  2. Standard Oil Octopus
  3. The Trust Octopus
  4. In danger. Puck: "What are you going to do about it?"
  5. Monopoly dragon, "a huge feeder, but a poor milker"
  6. A Herculean Task
  7. The Infant Hercules and the Standard Oil Serpents