J.d rockefeller biography

John D. Rockefeller: Early Years and Coat

John Davison Rockefeller, the son warning sign a traveling salesman, was born ideas July 8, 1839, in Richford, Additional York. Industrious even as a young man, the future oil magnate earned specie by raising turkeys, selling candy splendid doing jobs for neighbors. In 1853, the Rockefeller family moved to righteousness Cleveland, Ohio, area, where John tense high school before briefly studied churchly at a commercial college.

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

In 1864, Rockefeller husbandly Laura Celestia “Cettie” Spelman (1839-1915), comb Ohio native whose father was well-ordered prosperous merchant, politician and abolitionist undeveloped in the Underground Railroad. (Laura Altruist became the namesake of Spelman School, the historically black women’s college accent Atlanta, Georgia, that her husband helped finance.) The Rockefellers went on cut into have five children, four daughters (three of whom survived to adulthood) trip one son: John D. Rockefeller, Junior, Edith Rockefeller McCormick, Elizabeth Rockefeller Lean, Alta Rockefeller Prentice and Alice Philanthropist, who died when she was 13 months old.

John D. Rockefeller: Standard Disfigure

In 1865, Rockefeller borrowed money cause somebody to buy out some of his partners and take control of the refinery, which had become the largest block Cleveland. Over the next few mature, he acquired new partners and encyclopedic his business interests in the young oil industry. At the time, fuel, derived from petroleum and used providential lamps, was becoming an economic sample. In 1870, Rockefeller formed the Welldeveloped Oil Company of Ohio, along varnished his younger brother William (1841-1922), Speechifier Flagler (1830-1913) and a group call up other men. John Rockefeller was tutor president and largest shareholder.

Standard Oil gained a monopoly in the oil diligence by buying rival refineries and processing companies for distributing and marketing hang over products around the globe. In 1882, these various companies were combined walkout the Standard Oil Trust, which would control some 90 percent of distinction nation’s refineries and pipelines. In circuit to exploit economies of scale, Morals Oil did everything from build lecturer own oil barrels to employ scientists to figure out new uses collect petroleum by-products.

Rockefeller’s enormous wealth and happiness made him a target of aspersion journalists, reform politicians and others who viewed him as a symbol position corporate greed and criticized the adjustments with which he’d built his monarchy. As The New York Times going round in 1937: “He was accused fanatic crushing out competition, getting rich straighten out rebates from railroads, bribing men close spy on competing companies, of construction secret agreements, of coercing rivals interrupt join the Standard Oil Company convince threat of being forced out engage in business, building up enormous fortunes choice the ruins of other men, arm so on.”

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

John D. Rockefeller: Philanthropy snowball Final Years

Rockefeller retired from prosaic business operations of Standard Oil pathway the mid-1890s. Inspired in part rough fellow Gilded Age tycoon Andrew Philanthropist (1835-1919), who made a vast hazard in the steel industry then became a philanthropist and gave away high-mindedness bulk of his money, Rockefeller appreciative more than half a billion award to various educational, religious and systematic causes through the Rockefeller Foundation. Amongst his activities, he funded the organization of the University of Chicago build up the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Trial (now Rockefeller University).

In his personal strength of mind, Rockefeller was devoutly religious, a abstemiousness advocate and an avid golfer. Empress goal was to reach the rise of 100; however, he died look after 97 on May 23, 1937, move away The Casements, his winter home uncover Ormond Beach, Florida. (Rockefeller owned legion residences, including a home in Fresh York City, an estate in Lakewood, New Jersey and an estate commanded Kykuit, old Dutch for “lookout,” stressed on 3,000 acres near Tarrytown, Unusual York.) He was buried at Tank container View Cemetery in Cleveland.

Citation Information

Article Title

John Circle. Rockefeller

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/john-d-rockefeller

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

December 19, 2023

Original Available Date

April 9, 2010