JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER Biography - Bussiness people and enterpreneurs

 
 

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JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER

John Davison Rockefeller (July 8, 1839 - May 23, 1937) 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. Rockefeller also was one of the first major             
philanthropists in the U.S., establishing several important foundations and                 
donating a total of $540 million to charitable purposes.                                     
                                                                                             
Rockefeller was born on farm at Richford, in Tioga County, New York, on July 8,             
1839, the second of the six children of William A. and Eliza (Davison)                       
Rockefeller. The family lived in modest circumstances. When he was a boy, the               
family moved to Moravia and later to Owego, New York, before going west to Ohio             
in 1853. The Rockefellers bought a house in Strongsville, near Cleveland, and               
John entered Central High School in Cleveland. While he was a student he rented             
a room in the city 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.                                                                 
                                                                                             
He left high school in 1855 to take a business course at Folsom Mercantile                   
College. He completed the six-month course in three months and, after looking               
for a job for six weeks, was employed as assistant bookkeeper by Hewitt & Tuttle,           
a small firm of commission merchants and produce shippers. Rockefeller was not               
paid until after he had worked there three months, when Hewitt gave him $50 ($3.57           
a week) and told him that his salary was being increased to $25 a month. A few               
months later he became the cashier and bookkeeper.                                           
                                                                                             
In 1859, with $1,000 he had saved and another $1,000 borrowed from his father,               
Rockefeller formed a partnership in the commission business with another young               
man, Maurice B. Clark. In that same year the first oil well was drilled at                   
Titusville in western Pennsylvania, giving rise to the petroleum industry.                   
Cleveland soon became a major refining center of the booming new industry, and               
in 1863 Rockefeller and Clark entered the oil business as refiners. Together                 
with a new partner, Samuel Andrews, who had some refining experience, they built             
and operated an oil refinery under the company name of Andrews, Clark & Co. The             
firm also continued in the commission business but in 1865 the partners, now                 
five in number, disagreed about the management of their business affairs and                 
decided to sell the refinery to whoever amongst them bid the highest.                       
Rockefeller bought it for $72,500, sold out his other interests and, with                   
Andrews, formed Rockefeller & Andrews.                                                       
                                                                                             
THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY                                                                     
                                                                                             
Rockefeller's stake in the oil industry increased as the industry itself                     
expanded, spurred by the rapidly spreading use of kerosene for lighting. In 1870             
he organized The Standard Oil Company along with his brother William, Andrews,               
Henry M. Flagler, S.V. Harkness, and others. It had a capital of $1 million.                 
                                                                                             
By 1872 Standard Oil had purchased and thus controlled nearly all the refining               
firms in Cleveland, plus two refineries in the New York City area. Before long               
the company was refining 29,000 barrels of crude oil a day and had its own                   
cooper shop manufacturing wooden barrels. The company also had storage tanks                 
with a capacity of several hundred thousand barrels of oil, warehouses for                   
refined oil, and plants for the manufacture of paints and glue.                             
                                                                                             
Standard prospered and, in 1882, all its properties were merged in the Standard             
Oil Trust, which was in effect one great company. It had an initial capital of $70           
million. There were originally forty-two certificate holders, or owners, in the             
trust.                                                                                       
                                                                                             
After ten years the trust was dissolved by a court decision in Ohio. The                     
companies that had made up the trust later joined in the formation of the                   
Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), since New Jersey had adopted a law that                   
permitted a parent company to own the stock of other companies. It is estimated             
that Standard Oil owned three-fourths of the petroleum business in the U.S. in               
the 1890s.                                                                                   
                                                                                             
In addition to being the head of Standard, Rockefeller owned iron mines and                 
timberland and invested in numerous companies in manufacturing, transportation,             
and other industries. Although he held the title of president of Standard Oil               
until 1911, Rockefeller retired from active leadership of the company in 1896.               
In 1911 the U.S. Supreme Court found the Standard Oil trust to be in violation               
of the anti-trust laws and ordered the dissolution of the parent New Jersey                 
corporation. The thirty-eight companies which it then controlled were separated             
into individual firms. In his biography, Study in Power, John D. Rockefeller,               
Industrialist and Philanthropist, the historian Allan Nevins reports that                   
Rockefeller at that time owned 244,500 of the company's total of 983,383                     
outstanding shares.                                                                         
                                                                                             
PHILANTHROPY                                                                                 
                                                                                             
Rockefeller was 57 years old in 1896 when he decided that others should take                 
over the day-to-day leadership of Standard Oil. He now focused his efforts on               
philanthropy, giving away the bulk of his fortune in ways designed to do the                 
most good as determined by careful study, experience and the help of expert                 
advisers.                                                                                   
                                                                                             
From the time he had begun earning money as a boy, he had been giving a share of             
his income to his church and charities. His philanthropy grew out of his early               
family training, religious convictions, and financial habits. "I believe it is               
every man's religious duty to get all he can honestly and to give all he can,"               
he once wrote. During the 1850s, he made regular contributions to the Baptist               
church, and by the time he was 21, he was giving not only to his own but to                 
other denominations, as well as to a foreign Sunday school and an African-American           
church. Support of religious institutions and African-American education                     
remained among his foremost philanthropic interests throughout his life.                     
                                                                                             
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO                                                                   
                                                                                             
As his wealth grew in the 1870s and 1880s, Rockefeller came to favor a                       
cooperative and conditional system of giving in which he would agree to supply               
part of the sum needed for a particular project if the others interested in it               
also would provide substantial financial support. It was on such a conditional               
basis that Rockefeller participated in the founding of the University of Chicago.           
The American Baptist Education Society had resolved in 1889 to establish a "well-equipped   
college" in Chicago. At the urging of the society's director, the Rev. Frederick             
T. Gates, Rockefeller offered to give $600,000 of the first $1 million for                   
endowment, provided the remaining $400,000 was pledged by others within 90 days.             
Thus begun, the University of Chicago was incorporated in 1890, and over the                 
next twenty years Rockefeller contributed to help build up the institution,                 
always on condition that others should join in its support. In 1910 he made a               
farewell gift of $10 million, which brought his total contributions to the                   
university to about $35 million. In withdrawing from further activity there, he             
wrote: "I am acting on an early and permanent conviction that this great                     
institution, being the property of the people, should be controlled, conducted               
and supported by the people."                                                               
                                                                                             
CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY                                                                       
                                                                                             
Rockefeller recognized the difficulties of wisely applying great funds to human             
welfare, and he helped to define the method of scientific, efficient, corporate             
philanthropy. The method was this: to create charitable corporations and give               
them title to great funds, whose management and use would be governed by                     
trustees and overseen by officers with specialized training and experience, with             
both the trustees and officers being dedicated to continuous study of the                   
opportunities for the best uses of the funds under their care. To help manage               
his philanthropy, Rockefeller hired the Rev. Frederick T. Gates, whose work with             
the American Baptist Education Society and the University of Chicago inspired               
Rockefeller's confidence. With the advice of Gates and, after 1897, his son,                 
John D. Rockefeller Jr., Rockefeller established a series of institutions that               
are important in the history of American philanthropy, science, and medicine and             
public health.                                                                               
                                                                                             
THE ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH                                               
                                                                                             
In 1901 he 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. From its laboratories have come cures for               
diseases, and new knowledge and scientific techniques which have helped to                   
revolutionize medicine, biology, biochemistry, biophysics and other scientific               
disciplines. 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 identification of DNA as the crucial genetic                   
material.                                                                                   
                                                                                             
THE GENERAL EDUCATION BOARD (1902-1965)                                                     
                                                                                             
In 1902 Rockefeller established the General Education Board (GEB) for the "promotion         
of education within the United States of America without the distinction of race,           
sex or creed." In its active years between 1902 and 1965, the GEB distributed $325           
million for the improvement of education at all levels, with emphasis upon                   
higher education, including medical schools. In the South, where there was                   
special need, the GEB helped schools for both white and African-American                     
students. Also, out of the Board's work with children's clubs in the farm arena             
grew the 4-H Club movement and the federal programs of farm and home extension.             
                                                                                             
ROCKEFELLER SANITARY COMMISSION (1909-1915)                                                 
                                                                                             
In 1909 Rockefeller combined his special interest in the South and his interest             
in public health with the creation of the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for               
the Eradication of Hookworm Disease. Its purpose was "to bring about a                       
cooperative movement of the medical profession, public health officials, boards             
of trade, churches, schools, the press, and other agencies for the cure and                 
prevention of hookworm disease," which was especially devastating in the South.             
From its headquarters in Washington, D.C., the Sanitary Commission launched a               
massive campaign of public education and medication in eleven Southern states.               
It paid the salaries of field personnel, who were appointed jointly by the                   
states and the Commission, and sponsored public education campaigns and the                 
treatment of infected persons. As part of this program, more than 25,000 public             
meetings were attended by more than 2 million people who were given the facts               
about hookworm and its prevention. So successful was its work that a new agency             
was created as part of a new Rockefeller philanthropy to expand the work to                 
other countries and to attack other diseases both in the South and abroad.                   
                                                                                             
THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION                                                                   
                                                                                             
In 1913 Rockefeller established the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) to "promote the             
well-being of mankind throughout the world." In keeping with this broad                     
commitment, the Foundation through the years has given important assistance to               
public health, medical education, increasing food production, scientific                     
advancement, social research, the arts, and other fields all over the world.                 
                                                                                             
The Foundation's International Health Division expanded the work of the Sanitary             
Commission worldwide, working against various diseases in fifty-two countries on             
six continents and twenty-nine islands, bringing international recognition of               
the need for public health and environmental sanitation. Its early field                     
research on hookworm, malaria and yellow fever provided the basic techniques to             
control these diseases and established the pattern of modern public health                   
services. The RF built and endowed the world's first School of Hygiene and                   
Public Health, at The Johns Hopkins University, and then spent over $25 million             
in developing public health schools in the U.S. and in twenty-one foreign                   
countries. Its agricultural development program in Mexico led to what has been               
called the Green Revolution in the advancement of food production around the                 
world; and the RF provided significant funding for the International Rice                   
Research Institute in the Philippines. Thousands of scientists and scholars from             
all over the world have received RF fellowships and scholarships for advanced               
study. The foundation helped to found the Social Science Research Council and               
has provided significant support for such organizations as the National Bureau               
of Economic Research, the Brookings Institution, the Council on Foreign                     
Relations, and Russian Institute at Columbia University. In the arts the RF has             
helped establish or support the Stratford Shakespearean Festival in Ontario,                 
Canada, and the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut; Arena               
Stage in Washington, D.C.; Karamu House in Cleveland; and Lincoln Center for the             
Performing Arts in New York.                                                                 
                                                                                             
OTHER ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPIC SUPPORT                                                     
                                                                                             
In addition to creating these corporate philanthropies, Rockefeller continued to             
make personal donations. Among others whose activities received his financial               
support were various colleges and universities, including Yale, Harvard,                     
Columbia, Brown, Spelman, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, and Vassar; theological schools;             
the Palisades Interstate Park Commission; San Francisco Earthquake victims; the             
Anti-Saloon League; Rockefeller Park and other parks in Cleveland; Baptist                   
missionary organizations; and various YMCAs and YWCAs.                                       
                                                                                             
FAMILY LIFE                                                                                 
                                                                                             
John D. Rockefeller and Laura C. Spelman (1839-1915), a teacher, were married on             
September 8, 1864, in Cleveland. The Rockefellers had five children -- four                 
daughters and a son, John D., Jr. (1874-1960), who inherited much of the family             
fortune and continued his father's philanthropic work. Their eldest daughter,               
Bessie (1866-1906), married Charles Strong. Their second daughter, Alice (1869-1870),       
died in infancy. Alta (1871-1962) married E. Parmalee Prentice, and the youngest             
daughter, Edith (1872-1932), married Harold Fowler McCormick.                               
                                                                                             
In the 1870s Rockefeller began to make business trips from Cleveland to New York.           
After a time he started bringing along his family for lengthy stays and, in 1884,           
he bought a large brownstone house at 4 West 54th Street, the land of which is               
now part of the garden of the Museum of Modern Art. Beginning in the 1890s, the             
family spent part of their time at Pocantico Hills, about 25 miles north of New             
York. For a number of years the Rockefellers returned during the summer to their             
Forest Hill home in East Cleveland. As he grew older, Rockefeller spent several             
months each year at his country homes in Lakewood, New Jersey, and Ormond Beach,             
Florida.                                                                                     
                                                                                             
Rockefeller died on the morning of May 23, 1937, at The Casements, his home in               
Ormond Beach. He was 97 years old. He is buried in Lakeview Cemetery in                     
Cleveland.