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Primary sourceDocument4 February 1887

Interstate Commerce Act

4 February 1887

The 1887 law banning secret railroad rebates, a practice Standard Oil had used to undercut rival refiners.

This law banned the railroad rebate practices that Standard Oil, Rockefeller's company, had used against competitors.

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Handwritten manuscript page of the Act to Regulate Commerce, headed Forty-Ninth Congress of the United States of America, At the Second Session, with the text of the act in ink below, bordered in red ink, on aged paper.
Act of February 4, 1887 (Interstate Commerce Act). National Archives.

About this source

What it is

This handwritten manuscript is the Interstate Commerce Act, passed by the 49th Congress and signed into law in February 1887. It is held by the U.S. National Archives.

Why it matters

The act made railroads the first industry subject to federal regulation, banning special rates and rebates for individual shippers and creating the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce the rules. Standard Oil, run by Rockefeller, had used secret rebates from railroads to gain an advantage over competing refiners, and this law targeted exactly that kind of practice.

Look closer

  • Why would railroad rebates give one company an unfair advantage over its rivals?
  • Who benefited and who was harmed by the old system of unregulated railroad pricing?
  • Why might a law like this be hard to enforce in practice?

This document is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of John D. Rockefeller on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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