This is Planet Money from NPR.

Earlier this fall, a federal agency, the Federal Trade Commission, filed a high stakes lawsuit

against Amazon.

The FTC alleges that Amazon is a monopoly, and the FTC accuses the company of using anti-competitive

tactics to hold on to its market power to keep that monopoly.

This is a huge case with implications for consumers, and businesses, and digital marketplaces,

and for anti-trust law itself.

Anti-trust is the highly important but somewhat obscure body of law that deals with competition

and big business.

And so this week on Planet Money, we are doing a deep dive on anti-trust.

Now on Friday, we're going to have an interview with Lena Kahn, who is the current chair of

the FTC, you know, really the person behind this big high stakes lawsuit.

But today, we have a Planet Money double feature.

We've got two classic episodes that tell the story of how the U.S. government's approach

to big business and competition has changed over time.

Part one is about a moment more than a hundred years ago when it seemed like a few companies

were taking over America, and the government stepped in to the free market in a big way

to make competition work.

Here is that story.

The history of breaking up big companies in America arguably starts at an old house in

Titusville, Pennsylvania, the childhood home of a woman named Aida Tarval.

The house is still standing.

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