America's Coming of Age

    As the name implies, trust-busting was the act of busting trusts. Theodore Roosevelt developed the act of trust-busting after government officials failed to enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. During Roosevelt's 7 1/2 years in office, he managed to break up 44 trusts, also known as monopolies. Although Theodore Roosevelt is known as "The Trust-Buster, president William Howard Taft busted more than 2x the amount of trusts than Roosevelt.