they were called Captains of Industry.
…The corporate form of business enterprise allowed for potentially immense accumulations of capital to be under the control of a small number of managers; but in the 1870s and 1880s, the corporation was not yet established as the dominant legal form of operation.
To overcome these disadvantages, clever lawyers for John D. Rockefeller organized his Standard Oil of Ohio as a common-law trust. Trustees were given corporate stock certificates of various companies; by combining numerous corporations into the trust, the trustees could effectively manage and control an entire industry.
Within a decade, the Cotton Trust, Lead Trust, Sugar Trust, and Whiskey Trust—along with oil, telephone, steel, and tobacco trusts—had become, or were in the process of becoming, monopolies…
Which is not to say the advancements in Western Civilization those Giants of Industry blazed were not profound but when the realization of the downside of corporate accumulation of power started dawning on the consumers, the politicians took notice. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was essentially put in place to bring order to the marketplace. Though it took some years to take root, the Sherman Act added the power of the federal government’s influence for the future of business and the U.S. economy.
Now, today, the corporate culture has delivered US into an UNdeclared Oligarchy and with the help of the cooperative political class the descendants of those Captains of Industry have loosed the bonds of Common law and call their own tune as we dance drowsily to our craven new world.