John D. Rockefeller: Well-Known Family Empire

From the years 1870-1937 John D. Rockefeller was a Captain of Industry and truly was an example of the idyllic American dream. He by his success as a Captain of Industry also set a precedent from then on about the way that other Captains of Industries made their wealth and ran their companies as well. Furthermore, John D. Rockefeller was a Captain of Industry because he built the Standard Oil Company and was a very generous philanthropist. John D. Rockefeller did generate lots of revenue and create many jobs in the United States but it also can be said that he took advantage of the less fortunate by paying them less and buying out competing businesses.

John D. Rockefeller Senior is one of the most famous industrialists to date. His fame is well deserved, through decades of hard work that brought prosperity to the American petroleum industry. Rockefeller has been called philanthropist, "great man" 1 "industrial statesman…, robber baron" , thief and other titles of both pleasant and unpleasant nature. His ways of conducting business brought him fame, fortune, and a lawsuit that broke up the Standard Oil Company. Despite these questionable business practices, John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company greatly contributed to the economy, and the well-being of the United States and its people. "The life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., was marked to an exceptional degree by silence,

First, John D. Rockefeller didn’t start as wealthy young boy he was poor growing up sold candy for a living and with every piece of candy he sold, he made money to support his family because he could not rely on his father because he was conman who left all the time. John D. Rockefeller started to get into the oil business he saw a lot of potential in oil, he became interponer and saw that oil could make him rich and powerful.

A "robber baron" was someone who employed any means necessary to enrich themselves at the expense of their competitors. Did John D. Rockefeller fall into that category or was he one of the "captains of industry", whose shrewd and innovative leadership brought order out of industrial chaos and generated great fortunes that enriched the public welfare through the workings of various philanthropic agencies that these leaders established? In the early 1860s Rockefeller was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, who came to epitomize both the success and excess of corporate capitalism. His company was based in northwestern Pennsylvania.

The article “John D. Rockefeller: America’s First Billionaire” written by Robert L. Heilbroner displayed a thesis of “Rockefeller was a greedy monopolist who crushed competitors ruthlessly, yet he typified the perfect industrial statesman.” The article states numerous reasons on how Rockefeller was a money scavenger with no regard to other humans, but it also illustrates how he was one of the most successful businessmen. Initially, Heilbroner states, “Rockefeller wanted to own all of the oil and all of the railroads, to create his vast empire.” In accordance, Rockefeller contained about 95% of the oil from simply buying out his competitors. Consequently, Rockefeller also became one of the richest men in American history with his empire. The

John D. Rockefeller Jr. played a significant role in helping to resolve the Ludlow strike but mainly to save the reputation of his family name and preserve the integrity of his successful company, Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I). The Rockefeller family was generous in donating to various orphanages, charities, and churches but were known for being brutal to their coal mine workers. For this and because of the dangerous conditions they were forced to work in, the miners went on strike and set up tent colonies throughout Southern Colorado. It was John Jr’s company which hired the strikebreakers who attacked the tent colonies by opening fire with machine guns. The mine operators were trying to rile the coal miners and create conflict so that they would retaliate. This way CF&I could involve Governor Elias Ammons to help put an end to the strike with the

New technology led to big entrepreneurs in the United States, such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Now the real question is who was the better businessman? In my opinion, Andrew Carnegie was a much better businessman rather than John D. Rockefeller. “Born in Scotland, Carnegie immigrated to America in 1848 at the age of twelve” (Boyer 18-1d). Carnegie knew he had to get a foot in the door before he would be able to go out and make it on his own. Carnegie got a bird’s eye view of how the operations of the railroad took place when he became a telegraph operator. “Carnegie’s big break came in 1852 when Tom Scott, superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s western division, hired him as his secretary and

Rockefeller’s life before business shaped him into the businessman he became. John D. Rockefeller was born on July 8th, 1839 in New York. Rockefeller’s father went around the states scamming people into buying what they thought was the cure for cancer. Rockefeller knew what it was like to move around the country. He first lived in multiple locations in New York, and finally ended up in Ohio where his life would change forever. At the age of 24, Rockefeller and his neighbor Maurice Clark, both put up two thousand dollars and entered the oil-refinery business. The two men, Rockefeller and Clark started Standard Oil in Cleveland, Ohio, and by 1872, the two men had owned all of the oil-refineries around Cleveland. By 1878, Standard Oil owned about ninety percent of oil in the United States through horizontal integration. Horizontal integration is “dominating a particular phase of the production process in order to monopolize a market.” Through horizontal integration, Rockefeller was able to control as many oil refineries as he wanted and could monopolize. By monopolizing, Rockefeller did not have to worry about competition, and with Henry Ford’s Model T car, oil was at a high demand to power cars. Rockefeller was not just a businessman but a family man as well. Rockefeller was married for fifty-one years and had five

John D. Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1839, and has had a huge impact on the course of American history. His reputation spans from being a ruthlessly powerful businessman to an intelligent philanthropist. He came from a family with not much and lived the American dream, rising to success with his own genius, all by himself. His legacy is unforgettable, gaining the greatest wealth of anyone in history. Rockefeller’s influence on America has been both a positive and a negative one. He revolutionized the petroleum industry and donated huge amounts of money to various institutions. Although Rockefeller had many positive effects to this country, he also had many negative ones as well, such as gaining his wealth by creating an illegitimate monopoly that often grew by using illegal methods, by giving American’s (and the rest of the world) a reason to dislike capitalism, and by damaging small businesses.

First, the history of John D. Rockefeller and his rise to power. Rockefeller was born in the United States into a poor family in the year 1839. He worked from a young age until he had the chance to invest in oil. The interesting part is that he did not

John D. Rockefeller became one of the richest men in America in his time due to his top position in Standard Oil and the monopoly he created. Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York and moved to Ohio at 14 years old. Unafraid of work the, the young 20 year old thrived at his job and by the end of the year made $450,000. In the early 1860s, Rockefeller sensed an opportunity in the oil business. Cornelius Vanderbilt called Rockefeller up, thinking he could take advantage of the newly built business man. Though Vanderbilt was tough, Rockefeller was ruthless. Rockefeller was supposed to be on a train to meet Vanderbilt one morning, but was running late and missed it which spared his life because the train fell off its tracks. Rockefeller was a new man and felt as though God was on his side. Rockefeller realized the success in the oil business and how much people like Vanderbilt needed his oil and took it to his advantage.

John D. Rockefeller, Captain of Industry or Robber Baron? John D. Rockefeller was a captain of industry. He realised that oil has the potential to change the world. He also produced an oil product that was cheap.

John D. Rockefeller was born in New York in 1839 to a religious mother and an unethical con-man of a father named William Rockefeller. By age 20 he had used his knack for extreme meticulousness and went from a bookkeeper for a firm to having a successful partnership in a produce business. Later, he invested money into a Cleveland based petroleum and refinery where his talent for making money was on full display. He stepped into an industry that was unstable to say the least and repaired the market through monopolization. He used tactics such as driving up railroad shipping costs for his competition through rebate agreements with 3 railroads and a few other refineries called the South Improvement Plan. He also saved cost by being as self sufficient as possible, investing in manufacturing their own barrels, purchasing pipelines, railroad tank cars, and storage tanks. After strategically buying many of his competitors and utilizing some unethical tactics such as bribery, and spying by 1882 Rockefeller’s company had hold of 90 percent of the national market. In order too undercut regulations on the state level the company was changed to a Trust.

John D. Rockefeller, was American industrialist, had a difficult upbringing, founded the standard oil company, Chicago University, and the Rockefeller Foundation, and is now remembered as a philanthropist.

John D. Rockefeller was born July 8, 1839 in New York. He was a married man with a total of 5 kids with one of them dying at birth. His wife 's name was Laura S. Rockefeller and he married her in 1864. He always had a business mindset and he never strayed from hard work, he actually thrived on it. Even at a young age he started working harder than anyone in the room. This along with his natural talent for the business world made him a top competitor in any job he was willing to take on. Before Rockefeller had even had a job before he had walked around to local businesses and tried showing his potential and tried landing a job. He was turned down time after time but this did not