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Primary sourcePainting7 September 1904

Standard Oil as an Octopus

Udo Keppler · 7 September 1904

A famous 1904 political cartoon showing Standard Oil, the company built by John D. Rockefeller, as a giant octopus strangling industry and government.

This cartoon criticizes Standard Oil, the company Rockefeller founded and led, as a monopoly controlling government and industry.

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Colored political cartoon: a giant octopus whose body is a Standard Oil barrel-shaped tank, with tentacles wrapping the U.S. Capitol, the White House, a state house, oil derricks, and factories. Small figures struggle at the bottom right.
Udo Keppler, Standard Oil as an octopus, Puck, 7 September 1904.

About this source

What it is

This is a political cartoon drawn by Udo Keppler and published in Puck magazine on 7 September 1904. It shows a Standard Oil storage tank as the body of a giant octopus, its tentacles wrapped around the steel, copper, and shipping industries, a state house, the U.S. Capitol, and reaching toward the White House.

Why it matters

By 1904, Standard Oil, founded and led by John D. Rockefeller, was widely seen as a symbol of corporate power reaching into government and other industries. This cartoon reflects growing public anger at trusts and monopolies, feelings that helped fuel the antitrust movement of the early twentieth century.

Look closer

  • Why did the artist choose an octopus to represent Standard Oil?
  • What specific institutions are shown being gripped by the tentacles, and why might the artist have chosen them?
  • Who do you think was the intended audience for this cartoon, and what point was it trying to make?

This painting 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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