States of Competition: Geography, Boosters, and Oil Pipelines in the Nineteenth Century

In the late nineteenth century, an active debate raged in city councils and state legislatures: should they support or oppose efforts to give oil pipeline companies eminent domain privileges? A “free pipeline bill”—as it was known at the time—was hotly contested because it was linked to questions of regional economic advantage, property rights, and the monopoly power of the Standard Oil Company. Geography structured the responses of various government bodies. American oil production at the time was centered in western Pennsylvania, hundreds of miles from consumption centers on the eastern seaboard and Europe. Pipelines could bridge this gap, but it was widely recognized that where they were built would shape which regions and peoples benefited. The hope of profiting from oil shaped the debates, as New York and Maryland passed free pipeline bills to attract oil flows while Pennsylvania rejected similar bills in the hope of keeping oil in the state. Philadelphia refiners believed a free pipeline bill would enhance their prospects while Pittsburgh refiners actively opposed it for fear that it would nullify the advantage of their geographic proximity to the oilfields. In addition, debates over corporate privilege, particularly acute given republican objections to the monopoly power of Standard Oil, shaped government responses to free pipeline bills. My paper uses these debates as a lens for understanding how conflicting actions by local and state government agencies shape the development of energy systems more broadly. By detailing the variety of states involved and the complex set of geographic, economic, and political motives that shaped their response, I seek to contribute to this panel's efforts to develop more nuanced understandings of the relationships between states and energy systems.