Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Thus oil had already attracted the attention of ingenious Yankees as a convenient fuel for lamps, but rapidly acquired new uses with chemical processing. In 1859 a mere two thousand barrels had been produced, but by 1874 almost 11 million barrels (mostly from Pennsylvania and New York) were already enabling John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) to establish a stranglehold over the new industry by the control of its transport through his Standard Oil Company." [Hobsbawm: Capital, p. 43-4]