Leading nineteenth-century industrialist and philanthropist who made his fortune in the oil industry.
John D. Rockefeller was born in 1839 to William A. Rockefeller and Eliza Davison at Richford, New York. His father, an itinerant businessman, often traveled away from home, and John developed a closer relationship with his mother, a devout Baptist. She instilled in the boy values of ethical conduct including discipline, thrift, and a belief in hard work.
Rockefeller put his upbringing to good use. After studying at Folsom’s Commercial College in Cleveland (his family had moved to Ohio in 1853) and following a six-month job search, Rockefeller began his business career in September 1855 working as a clerk and keeper in a wholesale commission house, which sold securities to dealers at wholesale prices. In 1859 he resigned from this position and, with a loan from his father, formed a partnership with Maurice B. From their commission house, the two men diversified into oil refining in 1863. At that time Samuel Andrews, an expert in refining crude, joined them. Rockefeller soon bought out interest and entered the oil industry full time. In 1864 Rockefeller married Laura Celestia Spelman, and the couple had four children. In 1867 Henry M. Flagler joined Rockefeller’s firm, which they reorganized as Rockefeller, Andrews& Flagler. By 1870 the partnership had become Standard Oil of Ohio.
Beginning with refining, Rockefeller soon added the transporting of oil via pipelines, especially with the purchase of United Pipe Lines in 1877. He entered the production end of the business in 1889 with the acquisition of the Ohio Oil Company. From those origins and along with the establishment of the Standard Oil Trust in 1882, Rockefeller began to amass a great fortune, which peaked at $900 million in 1913. In 1911, the Supreme Court ordered the Standard Oil trust dissolved into smaller companies and forbade the continuation of the same board of directors for each smaller company formed. Much of the wealth (some $540 million) amassed by Rockefeller went into charities and his philanthropic foundations, particularly the Rockefeller Foundation. He created the foundation in 1913 after Andrew Carnegie convinced him to donate part of his wealth to quiet critics and socialists who might attempt to take it all by altering the U.S. economic and political system. Rockefeller died in 1937 at Ormond Beach, Florida.
