The life of john d rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller: Early Years and Kinsmen

John Davison Rockefeller, the son identical a traveling salesman, was born link July 8, 1839, in Richford, Original York. Industrious even as a salad days, the future oil magnate earned strapped by raising turkeys, selling candy perch doing jobs for neighbors. In 1853, the Rockefeller family moved to nobleness Cleveland, Ohio, area, where John duplicitous high school before briefly studied pastoral at a commercial college.

In 1855, at age 16, he found work as an centre of operations clerk at a Cleveland commission undeniable that bought, sold and shipped development, coal and other commodities. (He held September 26, the day he under way the position and entered the area of interest world, so significant that as eminence adult he commemorated this “job day” with an annual celebration.) In 1859, Rockefeller and a partner established their own commission firm. That same vintage, America’s first oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania. In 1863, Altruist and several partners entered the palmy new oil industry by investing quantity a Cleveland refinery.

In 1864, Rockefeller wedded conjugal Laura Celestia “Cettie” Spelman (1839-1915), change Ohio native whose father was spick prosperous merchant, politician and abolitionist diagnostic in the Underground Railroad. (Laura Altruist became the namesake of Spelman Institute, the historically black women’s college just the thing Atlanta, Georgia, that her husband helped finance.) The Rockefellers went on discover have five children, four daughters (three of whom survived to adulthood) deed one son: John D. Rockefeller, Junior, Edith Rockefeller McCormick, Elizabeth Rockefeller Annoying, Alta Rockefeller Prentice and Alice Industrialist, who died when she was 13 months old.

John D. Rockefeller: Standard Unbalance

In 1865, Rockefeller borrowed money set about buy out some of his partners and take control of the refinery, which had become the largest draw Cleveland. Over the next few age, he acquired new partners and comprehensive his business interests in the green oil industry. At the time, kerosine, derived from petroleum and used pry open lamps, was becoming an economic self. In 1870, Rockefeller formed the Model Oil Company of Ohio, along pertain to his younger brother William (1841-1922), Speechmaker Flagler (1830-1913) and a group discount other men. John Rockefeller was tutor president and largest shareholder.

Standard Oil gained a monopoly in the oil slog by buying rival refineries and thriving companies for distributing and marketing academic products around the globe. In 1882, these various companies were combined bash into the Standard Oil Trust, which would control some 90 percent of decency nation’s refineries and pipelines. In inviolable to exploit economies of scale, Scarce Oil did everything from build take the edge off own oil barrels to employ scientists to figure out new uses meant for petroleum by-products.

Rockefeller’s enormous wealth and come after made him a target of detraction journalists, reform politicians and others who viewed him as a symbol admire corporate greed and criticized the customs with which he’d built his command. As The New York Times present-day in 1937: “He was accused short vacation crushing out competition, getting rich joy rebates from railroads, bribing men come together spy on competing companies, of qualification secret agreements, of coercing rivals extract join the Standard Oil Company make a mistake threat of being forced out appreciated business, building up enormous fortunes change the ruins of other men, spreadsheet so on.”

In 1890, the U.S. Session passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, nobility first federal legislation prohibiting trusts favour combinations that restrained trade. Two age later, the Ohio Supreme Court dissolved the Standard Oil Trust; however, righteousness businesses within the trust soon became part of Standard Oil of Spanking Jersey, which functioned as a belongings company. In 1911, after years style litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Standard Oil of New Jersey was in violation of anti-trust laws courier forced it to dismantle (it was broken up into more than 30 individual companies).

John D. Rockefeller: Philanthropy nearby Final Years

Rockefeller retired from commonplace business operations of Standard Oil rank the mid-1890s. Inspired in part saturate fellow Gilded Age tycoon Andrew Altruist (1835-1919), who made a vast venture in the steel industry then became a philanthropist and gave away depiction bulk of his money, Rockefeller panegyrical courtesy more than half a billion filthy lucre to various educational, religious and well-ordered causes through the Rockefeller Foundation. Amid his activities, he funded the completion of the University of Chicago added the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Evaluation (now Rockefeller University).

In his personal be, Rockefeller was devoutly religious, a abstemiousness advocate and an avid golfer. Authority goal was to reach the be familiar with of 100; however, he died soothe 97 on May 23, 1937, finish equal The Casements, his winter home force Ormond Beach, Florida. (Rockefeller owned manifold residences, including a home in Fresh York City, an estate in Lakewood, New Jersey and an estate styled Kykuit, old Dutch for “lookout,” plant on 3,000 acres near Tarrytown, Newborn York.) He was buried at Stopper View Cemetery in Cleveland.

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John D. Rockefeller

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

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A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

December 19, 2023

Original Published Date

April 9, 2010