John D. Rockefeller

Extracted Attributes

• Born

  1839-07-08

• Died

  1937-05-23

• Religion

  Mainline Baptist Christian

• Full Name

  John Davison Rockefeller Sr.

• Nationality

  American

• Net Worth (1913)

  $900 million (approximately 3% of US GDP)

• Business Philosophy

  Social Darwinism (Survival of the fittest)

• Total Philanthropic Giving

  Over $500 million

Timeline

• Born in Richford, New York, to William A. and Eliza Davison Rockefeller. (Source: Rockefeller Archive Center)

  1839-07-08

• Began his first job as an assistant bookkeeper at Hewitt & Tuttle in Cleveland, Ohio. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1855-09-26

• Co-founded the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. (Source: History.com)

  1870-01-10

• Founded the University of Chicago. (Source: Britannica Money)

  1892-01-01

• Retired from active leadership of Standard Oil to focus on philanthropy. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1897-01-01

• Established the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University). (Source: Rockefeller Archive Center)

  1901-01-01

• Founded the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission to eradicate hookworm disease. (Source: History.com)

  1909-01-01

• The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil for violating federal antitrust laws. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1911-05-15

• Chartered the Rockefeller Foundation to promote the well-being of mankind. (Source: Britannica Money)

  1913-05-14

• Died of a heart attack at his home in Ormond Beach, Florida, at age 97. (Source: Britannica Money)

  1937-05-23

John D. Rockefeller

John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest Americans of all time and one of the richest people in modern history. Rockefeller was born into a large family in Upstate New York who moved several times before eventually settling in Cleveland, Ohio. He became an assistant bookkeeper at age 16 and went into several business partnerships beginning at age 20, concentrating his business on oil refining. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870. He ran it until 1897 and remained its largest shareholder. In his retirement, he focused his energy and wealth on philanthropy, especially regarding education, medicine, higher education, and modernizing the Southern United States. Rockefeller's wealth grew substantially as kerosene and gasoline became increasingly important commodities, eventually making him the richest person in the United States. By 1900, Standard Oil controlled about 90% of the nation's oil production. The company lowered production costs and expanded oil distribution through corporate and technological innovations, but it also benefited from a legal environment that enabled consolidation. Critics argue that regulatory capture played a role in facilitating its monopoly power–a view reinforced by Rockefeller's reputed remark, "Competition is a sin." Rockefeller's company and business practices came under criticism, particularly in the writings of author Ida Tarbell. The Supreme Court ruled in 1911 that Standard Oil must be dismantled for violation of federal antitrust laws. It was broken up into 34 separate entities, which included companies that became ExxonMobil, Chevron Corporation, and others—some of which remain among the largest companies by revenue worldwide. Consequently, Rockefeller became the country's first billionaire, with a fortune worth nearly 2% of the national economy. His personal wealth was estimated in 1913 at $900 million, which was almost 3% of the US gross domestic product (GDP) of $39.1 billion that year. Rockefeller spent much of the last 40 years of his life in retirement at Kykuit, his estate in Westchester County, New York, defining the structure of modern philanthropy, along with other key industrialists such as Andrew Carnegie. His fortune was used chiefly to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy through the creation of foundations that supported medicine, education, and scientific research. His foundations pioneered developments in medical research and were instrumental in the near-eradication of hookworm in the American South, and yellow fever in the United States. He and Carnegie gave form and impetus through their charities to the work of Abraham Flexner, who in his essay "Medical Education in America" emphatically endowed empiricism as the basis for the US medical system of the 20th century. Rockefeller was the founder of the University of Chicago and Rockefeller University, and funded the establishment of Central Philippine University in the Philippines. He was a devout mainline Baptist Christian and supported many church-based institutions. He adhered to total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco throughout his life. For advice, he relied closely on his wife, Laura Spelman Rockefeller; they had four daughters and a son together. He was a faithful congregant of the Erie Street Baptist Mission Church, taught Sunday school, and served as a trustee, clerk, and occasional janitor. Religion was a guiding force throughout his life, and he believed it to be the source of his success. Rockefeller was also considered a supporter of capitalism based on a perspective of social Darwinism, and he was quoted often as saying, "The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest."

Web Search Results

• John D. Rockefeller, 1839-1937 | Rockefeller Archive Center

  Rockefeller Archive Center # John D. Rockefeller, 1839-1937 John D. Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller (JDR) was the guiding force behind the creation and development of the Standard Oil Company, which grew to dominate the oil industry and became one of the first big trusts in the United States, thus engendering much controversy and opposition regarding its business practices and form of organization. JDR also was one of the first major philanthropists in the United States, establishing several important foundations and donating a total of $540 million to charitable endeavors. [...] John D. Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1839, on farm in Richford, New York, the second of the six children of William A. and Eliza Davison Rockefeller. The family lived in modest circumstances. When he was a boy, his family moved often, arriving in Ohio in 1853. JDR attended Central High School in Cleveland and joined the Erie Street Baptist Church, which later became the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church. Active in its affairs, he became a trustee of the church at the age of 21. JDR left high school in 1855 to take a business course at Folsom Mercantile College. He completed the six-month course in three months and became the assistant bookkeeper with Hewitt & Tuttle, a small firm of commission merchants and produce shippers. A few months later he was promoted to cashier and bookkeeper. [...] In 1901 JDR founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now The Rockefeller University) for the purpose of discovering the causes, manner of prevention, and the cure of disease. A few of the noted achievements of its scientists are the serum treatment of spinal meningitis and of pneumonia; knowledge of the cause and manner of infection in infantile paralysis; the nature of the virus causing epidemic influenza; blood vessel surgery; a treatment for African sleeping sickness; the first demonstration of the preservation of whole blood for subsequent transfusion; the first demonstration of how nerve cells flow from the brain to other areas of the body; the discovery that a virus can cause cancer in fowl; peptide synthesis; and the identification of DNA as the crucial genetic

• John D. Rockefeller | Biography, Industry, Philanthropy, Facts, & Death | Britannica Money

  ### What was John D. Rockefeller remembered for? John D. Rockefeller (born July 8, 1839, Richford, New York, U.S.—died May 23, 1937, Ormond Beach, Florida) was an American industrialist and philanthropist who founded the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. He is the major historical figure behind the famed Rockefeller family and widely considered the richest American and biggest philanthropist in history. [...] Rockefeller was the eldest son and second of six children born to traveling physician and snake-oil salesman William (“Big Bill”) Avery Rockefeller and Eliza Davison Rockefeller. He moved with his family to Moravia, New York, and, in 1851, to Owego, in Tioga county, New York, where he attended Owego Academy. The family relocated to Strongsville, a town near Cleveland, Ohio, in 1853, and six years later—after attending and later dropping out of Cleveland’s Central High School, taking a single business class at Folsom Mercantile College, and working as a bookkeeper—Rockefeller established his first enterprise, a commission business dealing in hay, grain, meats, and other goods. Sensing the commercial potential of the expanding oil production in western Pennsylvania in the early 1860s, he [...] John D. Rockefeller and his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. A devout Baptist, Rockefeller turned his attention increasingly during the 1890s to charities and benevolence; after 1897 he devoted himself completely to philanthropy. He made possible the founding of the University of Chicago in 1892, and by the time of his death—from a heart attack in 1937, shortly before his 98th birthday—he had given it some $35 million. In association with his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., he created major philanthropic institutions, including the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (renamed Rockefeller University) in New York City (1901), the General Education Board (1902), and the Rockefeller Foundation (1913). Rockefeller’s benefactions during his lifetime totaled more than $500 million.

• John D. Rockefeller - Biography, Facts & Children - History.com

  John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), founder of the Standard Oil Company, became one of the world’s wealthiest men and a major philanthropist. Born into modest circumstances in upstate New York, he entered the then-fledgling oil business in 1863 by investing in a Cleveland, Ohio refinery. In 1870, he established Standard Oil, which by the early 1880s controlled some 90 percent of U.S. refineries and pipelines. Critics accused Rockefeller of engaging in unethical practices, such as predatory pricing and colluding with railroads to eliminate his competitors in order to gain a monopoly in the industry. In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court found Standard Oil in violation of anti-trust laws and ordered it to dissolve. During his life Rockefeller donated more than $500 million to various philanthropic [...] ## John D. Rockefeller: Early Years and Family John Davison Rockefeller, the son of a traveling salesman, was born on July 8, 1839, in Richford, New York. Industrious even as a boy, the future oil magnate earned money by raising turkeys, selling candy and doing jobs for neighbors. In 1853, the Rockefeller family moved to the Cleveland, Ohio, area, where John attended high school before briefly studied bookkeeping at a commercial college. ## Did you know? One of the charitable organizations established by John D. Rockefeller, Sr. was the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission, founded in 1909. Less than 20 years after its creation, the Commission had achieved its primary goals, the successful eradication of hookworm disease across the southern United States. [...] The oil tycoon and philanthropist had some surprising aspects. ## John D. Rockefeller: Standard Oil In 1865, Rockefeller borrowed money to buy out some of his partners and take control of the refinery, which had become the largest in Cleveland. Over the next few years, he acquired new partners and expanded his business interests in the growing oil industry. At the time, kerosene, derived from petroleum and used in lamps, was becoming an economic staple. In 1870, Rockefeller formed the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, along with his younger brother William (1841-1922), Henry Flagler (1830-1913) and a group of other men. John Rockefeller was its president and largest shareholder.

• John D. Rockefeller - Wikipedia

  Rockefeller was the founder of the University of Chicago and Rockefeller University, and funded the establishment of Central Philippine University in the Philippines._-_CPU_holds_Faculty_and_Staff_Conference_2018-17) He was a devout mainline Baptist Christian and supported many church-based institutions. He adhered to total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco throughout his life. For advice, he relied closely on his wife, Laura Spelman Rockefeller; they had four daughters and a son together. He was a faithful congregant of the Erie Street Baptist Mission Church, taught Sunday school, and served as a trustee, clerk, and occasional janitor. Religion was a guiding force throughout his life, and he believed it to be the source of his success. Rockefeller was also considered a supporter of [...] John D. Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York, then part of the Burned-over district, a New York state region that became the site of an evangelical revival known as the Second Great Awakening. It drew masses to various Protestant churches—especially Baptist ones—and urged believers to follow such ideals as hard work, prayer, and good deeds to build "the Kingdom of God on Earth." Early in his life, he regularly went with his siblings and mother Eliza to the local Baptist church—the Erie Street Baptist Church (later the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church)—an independent Baptist church that eventually associated with the Northern Baptist Convention (1907–1950; now part of the modern American Baptist Churches USA).[citation needed] [...] Rockefeller was the second of six children born in Richford, New York, to con artist William A. Rockefeller Sr. and Eliza Davison. Rockefeller had an elder sister named Lucy and four younger siblings: William Jr., Mary, and fraternal twins Franklin (Frank) and Frances. His father was of English and German descent, while his mother was of Ulster Scot descent. One source says that some ancestors were Huguenots, the Roquefeuille family, who fled to Germany from France during the reign of Louis XIV and a period of religious persecution. By the time their descendants immigrated to North America, their name had taken German form. William Sr. worked first as a lumberman and then a traveling salesman. He claimed to be a "botanic physician" who sold elixirs, and was described by locals as "Big

• Rockefeller: Making of a Billionaire | Inside Adams

  John D. Rockefeller created the Standard Oil Company, the success of which made him the world’s first billionaire and a celebrated philanthropist. He garnered both admirers and critics during his lifetime and after his death. Wall Street idolized his money-making abilities, muckrake journalists exposed his unethical business practices, and his charitable causes created a legacy of generosity.