History
How economic power gathered in institutions, what it cost the people under it, and how ordinary people pushed back, peacefully. Every fact links to its source.
01 · Power in institutions
Great fortunes have often been built through institutions: trusts, banks, company towns, and the rules that govern money in politics. Each time, the public answered through law.
July 2, 1890
President Benjamin Harrison signed the first federal law to prohibit trusts and monopolistic restraint of interstate and foreign trade.[1]
May 15, 1911
In Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, the Supreme Court found the Standard Oil combination an unreasonable restraint of trade under the Sherman Act and ordered it dissolved, to "neutralize the force of the unlawful power."[2]
Coal country
In coal towns, miners were often paid in scrip, coupons or metal tokens instead of cash, generally redeemable only at the mine's own company store, which the National Park Service calls the economic and social center of the coal town.[3]
October 15, 1914
Congress strengthened antitrust law. Section 6 states plainly: "The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce."[4]
June 16, 1933
During the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Banking Act of 1933, which separated commercial banking from investment banking.[5]
November 12, 1999
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Public Law 106-102) repealed the 1933 provisions that restricted affiliations between banks and securities firms.[6][5]
January 21, 2010
By 5 to 4, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment bars limits on corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections, overruling Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and parts of McConnell v. FEC.[7]
02 · Oppression and the economics behind it
Oppression has always had an economic side: who works, who is paid, who may own a home. These are some of the systems, and the laws that ended or limited them.
December 6, 1865
Slavery was an economic system that held people as property for their labor. The 13th Amendment, ratified December 6, 1865, abolished it "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."[8]
After 1865
Built on that exception, states and local governments leased prisoners' labor to companies and individuals for a fee. The Library of Congress notes the system lasted through World War II.[10][8]
The Jim Crow era
In the words of the National Archives, Jim Crow was "a system of laws and practices set in place to maintain white supremacy" that limited the freedom of African Americans.[9]
The Depression era
The federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation, created in response to the Depression mortgage crisis, drew neighborhood-by-neighborhood maps rating the "security" of areas by their residents' racial, ethnic and economic makeup. The Library of Congress links these maps to redlining: racially motivated lending discrimination.[11]
April 11, 1968
Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 made it illegal to discriminate by race in the sale and rental of housing.[12][13]
March 25, 1911
Fire swept the Triangle Waist Company in New York City and 146 garment workers died.[14]
June 25, 1938
The first federal minimum wage (25 cents an hour, rising to 40 cents within seven years), a maximum workweek of 44 hours falling to 40, and limits on child labor, chiefly employment under 16, or under 18 in hazardous work.[15][16]
03 · Ordinary people organizing peacefully
Boycotts, strikes and campaigns work because they turn many small choices into one large one. Here is what people did, and what changed.
October 20, 1774
Delegates of the American colonies pledged to stop importing British goods from December 1, 1774, to stop consuming them, East India tea included, from March 1, 1775, and to stop exporting to Britain from September 10, 1775.[18]
1880, County Mayo, Ireland
During the Irish Land League campaign, Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott, land agent for an absentee landlord, was shunned by the whole community. The word "boycott" first appeared in print in The Times of London in November 1880.[17]
September 1916
The Adamson Act set an eight-hour day for workers on interstate railroads, effective January 1, 1917; the Supreme Court upheld it in March 1917.[24][25][15]
What changed: Under the Fair Labor Standards Act the 40-hour week became the national standard in October 1940.
December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956
For about 13 months, Black residents of Montgomery, Alabama refused to ride the city's segregated buses.[19][20]
What changed: In Browder v. Gayle a federal court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional on June 5, 1956, and the Supreme Court affirmed in November 1956.
1965 to 1970
Farm workers in Delano, California struck, and the United Farm Workers grew through the strike and an international grape boycott.[21]
What changed: On July 29, 1970, Delano-area growers signed their first contracts with the UFW.
1977 to 1984
Infant Formula Action (INFACT) launched a boycott of Nestlé products in Minneapolis on July 4, 1977, over the marketing of infant formula.[23]
What changed: An International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes followed in 1981, and the boycott was called off on October 4, 1984.
1986
Amid an international campaign of boycotts and divestment, Congress passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, prohibiting new loans to and investments in South Africa.[22]
What changed: It became law over the President's veto: the House voted to override on September 29, 1986 and the Senate on October 2, 1986.
04 · Economic facts today
Shares of total US household net worth by wealth group, from the Federal Reserve's Distributional Financial Accounts (2026 Q2, published September 18, 2026), and the top federal income tax rate over time.
1944 to 1945
The federal rate on the highest bracket of income in 1944 and 1945.[28]
1951 to 1963
91% in 1951, 92% in 1952 and 1953, then 91% from 1954 through 1963.[28]
1971 to 1980
Held at 70% through the 1970s.[28]
1988 to 1990
Held at 28% from 1988 through 1990.[28]
2018 to 2023
The latest years in the Tax Policy Center's historical table.[28]
32.5%
of US household net worth is held by the top 1% (top 0.1% at 15.0% plus the rest of the top 1% at 17.5%).[26][27]
As of 2026 Q2, Federal Reserve DFA
50.9%
of corporate equities and mutual fund shares held by households belong to the top 1% (25.0% top 0.1%, 25.9% rest of top 1%); the bottom half holds 0.6%.[27]
As of 2026 Q2, Federal Reserve DFA
Where the Club fits
Every change on this page started with people who agreed on what was wrong and acted on it together, in the open, without violence: they signed, they stayed home, they bought elsewhere, they voted, they went to court.
The Billionaire Boycott Club launched on the web in October 2026 to make that kind of organizing easier: petitions, polls, events, a feed and chat in one place, under guidelines that forbid violence of any kind.
All sources accessed October 2026.
The Club is open on the web.