The making of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 implies an important role played by public utility holding companies in the development of the bull stock market in the late 1920's. A holding company, whose aim is to hold other companies' securities in order to get controlling power, first appeared in the field of manufacturing industry around 1890. But, under legislative regulations such as Sherman Act or Clayton Act, holding companies were deprived of chances to flourish in the manufacturing industry, and were replaced by some other legal means of capital concentration. They found themselves again, however, in the newly developed industry, public utilities, in the 1910's, and this was the place for their full activities all through the prosperity decade of the 1920's. Why in public utilities, not in other fields ? Who created holding companies in public utilities ? The author attempted in this paper to answer these questions by illustrating the development of major holding companies in the 1910's.
