John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He has been widely considered the wealthiest American of all time and the richest person in modern history. Rockefeller was born into a large family in Upstate New York that moved several times before eventually settling in Cleveland. 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 left high school in 1855 to take a six-month business course, which he completed in three months. He then took a job where he earned $3.57 a week. He did not even get paid for three months. But by 1859, he had saved $1000. He borrowed another $1000 from his father. What do you think he did with that money? Rockefeller used the $2000 as a seed to grow a huge, multimillion dollar fortune.
That year oil was discovered in western Pennsylvania. Rockefeller and a business partner became oil refiners. From this small start, grew the Standard Oil Company. By the 1890s, Standard Oil owned three-quarters of the oil industry in the United States. Rockefeller was not only head of this huge company, he also owned iron mines, forests, and shares in manufacturing and transportation companies. The problem was, his wealth and power grew through unfair methods—bribery, intimidation, and bullying all his competitors out of business. In 1911, as a result of Ida Tarbell’s articles about Standard Oil Company, the Supreme Court ordered the company dissolved.
Rockefeller was one of the richest men in the world, and to those who read the muckraking articles, he seemed like a monster. But he gave away most of his fortune in ways carefully designed to do the most good. As a child he learned to share his income with the church and charity, and he continued to do this all his life. With his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., he established many institutions to benefit science, medicine, education, and the arts. On a personal level, he delighted in handing out dimes to children he met.
According to en.wikipedia.org; thirteen.org. Source of photos: internet
