thomas l. krattenmaker. the standard oil trust was formed in 1882, and that led to widespread public concern. it was that public reaction to the trusts that led to the passage of the sherman act in 1890. the sherman act made it illegal for any one firm to obtain a monopoly. that is, to get complete control over the production of all the goods in one market. and secondly, the sherman act made it illegal for firms to get together and agree on the way in which they would compete. for example, by setting prices or dividing markets or determining which customers they would deal with. the sherman act was one of only several choices that could have been made in 1890. congress could have chosen to nationalize the trusts. it could have chosen to set up a large government department to oversee the behavior of the trusts or even to run the trusts in cooperation with private enterprise. and those are devices that are widely adopted in other countries around the world. instead, what they did is they harkened back to the american belief in leaving power in private hands, but dispersing that power. changing