\n#13<\/td>\n | Laura Spelman Rockefeller<\/td>\n | \n Spouse\n <\/td>\n | <\/td>\n | \n N\/A\n <\/td>\n | \n N\/A\n <\/td>\n | N\/A\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nDoes John D. Rockefeller Dead or Alive?<\/h2>\nAs per our current Database, John D. Rockefeller died on May 23, 1937 (age 97).<\/p>\n <\/i> Physique<\/h2>\n\n \n\n\nHeight<\/th>\n | Weight<\/th>\n | Hair Colour<\/th>\n | Eye Colour<\/th>\n | Blood Type<\/th>\n | Tattoo(s)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n | \n\n\n N\/A\n <\/td>\n | \n N\/A\n <\/td>\n | \n N\/A\n <\/td>\n | \n N\/A\n <\/td>\n | \n N\/A\n <\/td>\n | \n N\/A\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\nBefore Fame<\/h2>\nHe worked as a bookkeeper for a produce commission firm.<\/p>\n <\/i> Biography<\/h2>\n<\/i> Biography Timeline<\/h2>\n\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1851<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n When he was a boy, his family moved to Moravia, New York, and to Owego, New York, in 1851, where he attended Owego Academy. In 1853, his family moved to Strongsville, Ohio, and he attended Cleveland’s Central High School, the first high school in Cleveland and the first free public high school west of the Alleghenies. Then he took a ten-week business course at Folsom’s Commercial College, where he studied bookkeeping. He was a well-behaved, serious, and studious boy despite his father’s absences and frequent family moves. His contemporaries described him as reserved, earnest, religious, methodical, and discreet. He was an excellent debater and expressed himself precisely. He also had a deep love of music and dreamed of it as a possible career.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1855<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n In September 1855, when Rockefeller was sixteen, he got his first job as an assistant bookkeeper working for a small produce commission firm in Cleveland called Hewitt & Tuttle. He worked long hours and delighted, as he later recalled, in “all the methods and systems of the office.” He was particularly adept at calculating transportation costs, which served him well later in his career. Much of Rockefeller’s duties involved negotiating with barge canal owners, ship captains, and freight agents. In these negotiations, he learned that posted transportation rates that were believed to be fixed could be altered depending on conditions and timing of freight and through the use of rebates to preferred shippers. Rockefeller was also given the duties of collecting debts when Hewitt instructed him to do so. Instead of using his father’s method of presence to collect debts, Rockefeller relied on a persistent pestering approach. Rockefeller received $16 a month for his three-month apprenticeship. During his first year, he received $31 a month, which was increased to $50 a month. His final year provided him $58 a month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1859<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n In 1859, Rockefeller went into the produce commission business with a partner, Maurice B. Clark, and they raised $4,000 ($113,822 in 2019 dollars) in capital. Clark initiated the idea of the partnership and offered $2,000 towards the goal. Rockefeller had only $800 saved up at the time and so borrowed $1,000 from his father, “Big Bill” Rockefeller, at 10 percent interest. Rockefeller went steadily ahead in business from there, making money each year of his career. In their first and second years of business, Clark & Rockefeller netted $4,400 (on nearly half a million dollars in business) and $17,000 worth of profit, respectively, and their profits soared with the outbreak of the American Civil War when the Union Army called for massive amounts of food and supplies. When the Civil War was nearing a close and with the prospect of those war-time profits ending, Clark & Rockefeller looked toward the refining of crude oil. While his brother Frank fought in the Civil War, Rockefeller tended his business and hired substitute soldiers. He gave money to the Union cause, as did many rich Northerners who avoided combat. \u201cI wanted to go in the army and do my part,\u201d Rockefeller said. \u201cBut it was simply out of the question. There was no one to take my place. We were in a new business, and if I had not stayed it must have stopped\u2014and with so many dependent on it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1862<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n Rockefeller was an abolitionist who voted for President Abraham Lincoln and supported the then-new Republican Party. As he said, “God gave me money”, and he did not apologize for it. He felt at ease and righteous following Methodist preacher John Wesley’s dictum, “gain all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.” At that time, the Federal government was subsidizing oil prices, driving the price up from $.35 a barrel in 1862 to as high as $13.75. This created an oil-drilling glut, with thousands of speculators attempting to make their fortunes. Most failed, but those who struck oil did not even need to be efficient. They would blow holes in the ground and gather up the oil as they could, often leading to creeks and rivers flowing with wasted oil in the place of water.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1863<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n A market existed for the refined oil in the form of kerosene. Coal had previously been used to extract kerosene, but its tedious extraction process and high price prevented broad use. Even with the high costs of freight transportation and a government levy during the Civil War (the government levied a tax of twenty cents a gallon on refined oil), profits on the refined product were large. The price of the refined oil in 1863 was around $13 a barrel, with a profit margin of around $5 to $8 a barrel. The capital expenditures for a refinery at that time were small – around $1,000 to $1,500 and requiring only a few men to operate. In this environment of a wasteful boom, the partners switched from foodstuffs to oil, building an oil refinery in 1863 in “The Flats”, then Cleveland’s burgeoning industrial area. The refinery was directly owned by Andrews, Clark & Company, which was composed of Clark & Rockefeller, chemist Samuel Andrews, and M. B. Clark’s two brothers. The commercial oil business was then in its infancy. Whale oil had become too expensive for the masses, and a cheaper, general-purpose lighting fuel was needed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1864<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n In 1864, Rockefeller married Laura Celestia “Cettie” Spelman (1839\u20131915), daughter of Harvey Buell Spelman and Lucy Henry. They had four daughters and one son together. He said later, “Her judgment was always better than mine. Without her keen advice, I would be a poor man.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1865<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n While other refineries would keep the 60% of oil product that became kerosene, but dump the other 40% in rivers and massive sludge piles, Rockefeller remained as thrifty and efficient as ever, using the gasoline to fuel the refinery, and selling the rest as lubricating oil, petroleum jelly and paraffin wax, and other by-products. Tar was used for paving, naphtha shipped to gas plants. Likewise, Rockefeller’s refineries hired their own plumbers, cutting the cost of pipe-laying in half. Barrels that cost $2.50 each ended up only $0.96 when Rockefeller bought the wood and had them built for himself. In February 1865, in what was later described by oil industry historian Daniel Yergin as a “critical” action, Rockefeller bought out the Clark brothers for $72,500 (equivalent to $1 million in 2019 dollars) at auction and established the firm of Rockefeller & Andrews. Rockefeller said, “It was the day that determined my career.” He was well-positioned to take advantage of postwar prosperity and the great expansion westward fostered by the growth of railroads and an oil-fueled economy. He borrowed heavily, reinvested profits, adapted rapidly to changing markets, and fielded observers to track the quickly expanding industry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1866<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n In 1866, William Rockefeller Jr., John’s brother, built another refinery in Cleveland and brought John into the partnership. In 1867, Henry Morrison Flagler became a partner, and the firm of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler was established. By 1868, with Rockefeller continuing practices of borrowing and reinvesting profits, controlling costs, and using refineries’ waste, the company owned two Cleveland refineries and a marketing subsidiary in New York; it was the largest oil refinery in the world. Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler was the predecessor of the Standard Oil Company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1870<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n On January 10, 1870, Rockefeller abolished the partnership of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler, forming Standard Oil of Ohio. Continuing to apply his work ethic and efficiency, Rockefeller quickly expanded the company to be the most profitable refiner in Ohio. Likewise, it became one of the largest shippers of oil and kerosene in the country. The railroads competed fiercely for traffic and, in an attempt to create a cartel to control freight rates, formed the South Improvement Company offering special deals to bulk customers like Standard Oil, outside the main oil centers. The cartel offered preferential treatment as a high-volume shipper, which included not just steep discounts\/rebates of up to 50% for their product but rebates for the shipment of competing products.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1872<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n Undeterred, though vilified for the first time by the press, Rockefeller continued with his self-reinforcing cycle of buying the least efficient competing refiners, improving the efficiency of his operations, pressing for discounts on oil shipments, undercutting his competition, making secret deals, raising investment pools, and buying rivals out. In less than four months in 1872, in what was later known as “The Cleveland Conquest” or “The Cleveland Massacre,” Standard Oil absorbed 22 of its 26 Cleveland competitors. Eventually, even his former antagonists, Pratt and Rogers, saw the futility of continuing to compete against Standard Oil; in 1874, they made a secret agreement with Rockefeller to be acquired.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1877<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n In 1877, Standard clashed with Thomas A. Scott, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Standard’s chief hauler. Rockefeller envisioned pipelines as an alternative transport system for oil and began a campaign to build and acquire them. The railroad, seeing Standard’s incursion into the transportation and pipeline fields, struck back and formed a subsidiary to buy and build oil refineries and pipelines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1879<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n Standard countered, held back its shipments, and, with the help of other railroads, started a price war that dramatically reduced freight payments and caused labor unrest. Rockefeller prevailed and the railroad sold its oil interests to Standard. In the aftermath of that battle, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania indicted Rockefeller in 1879 on charges of monopolizing the oil trade, starting an avalanche of similar court proceedings in other states and making a national issue of Standard Oil’s business practices. Rockefeller was under great strain during the 1870s and 1880s when he was carrying out his plan of consolidation and integration and being attacked by the press. He complained that he could not stay asleep most nights. Rockefeller later commented:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1882<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n At that time, many legislatures had made it difficult to incorporate in one state and operate in another. As a result, Rockefeller and his associates owned dozens of separate corporations, each of which operated in just one state; the management of the whole enterprise was rather unwieldy. In 1882, Rockefeller’s lawyers created an innovative form of corporation to centralize their holdings, giving birth to the Standard Oil Trust. The “trust” was a corporation of corporations, and the entity’s size and wealth drew much attention. Nine trustees, including Rockefeller, ran the 41 companies in the trust. The public and the press were immediately suspicious of this new legal entity, and other businesses seized upon the idea and emulated it, further inflaming public sentiment. Standard Oil had gained an aura of invincibility, always prevailing against competitors, critics, and political enemies. It had become the richest, biggest, most feared business in the world, seemingly immune to the boom and bust of the business cycle, consistently making profits year after year.<\/p>\n The company’s vast American empire included 20,000 domestic wells, 4,000 miles of pipeline, 5,000 tank cars, and over 100,000 employees. Its share of world oil refining topped out above 90% but slowly dropped to about 80% for the rest of the century. Despite the formation of the trust and its perceived immunity from all competition, by the 1880s Standard Oil had passed its peak of power over the world oil market. Rockefeller finally gave up his dream of controlling all the world’s oil refining; he admitted later, “We realized that public sentiment would be against us if we actually refined all the oil.” Over time, foreign competition and new finds abroad eroded his dominance. In the early 1880s, Rockefeller created one of his most important innovations. Rather than try to influence the price of crude oil directly, Standard Oil had been exercising indirect control by altering oil storage charges to suit market conditions. Rockefeller then ordered the issuance of certificates against oil stored in its pipelines. These certificates became traded by speculators, thus creating the first oil-futures market which effectively set spot market prices from then on. The National Petroleum Exchange opened in Manhattan in late 1882 to facilitate the trading of oil futures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1884<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n Standard Oil moved its headquarters to New York City at 26 Broadway, and Rockefeller became a central figure in the city’s business community. He bought a residence in 1884 on 54th Street near the mansions of other magnates such as William Henry Vanderbilt. Despite personal threats and constant pleas for charity, Rockefeller took the new elevated train to his downtown office daily. In 1887, Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission which was tasked with enforcing equal rates for all railroad freight, but by then Standard depended more on pipeline transport. More threatening to Standard’s power was the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, originally used to control unions, but later central to the breakup of the Standard Oil trust. Ohio was especially vigorous in applying its state antitrust laws, and finally forced a separation of Standard Oil of Ohio from the rest of the company in 1892, the first step in the dissolution of the trust.<\/p>\n In 1884, Rockefeller provided major funding for Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary in Atlanta for African-American women, which became Spelman College. His wife Laura Spelman Rockefeller, was dedicated to civil rights and equality for women. John and Laura donated money and supported the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary whose mission was in line with their faith based beliefs. Today known as Spelman College, the school is an all women Historically Black College or University in Atlanta, Georgia, named after Laura’s family. The Spelman Family, Rockefeller’s in-laws, along with John Rockefeller were ardent abolitionists before the Civil War and were dedicated to supporting the Underground Railroad. John Rockefeller was impressed by the vision of the school and removed the debt from the school. The oldest existing building on Spelman’s campus, Rockefeller Hall, is named after him. Rockefeller also gave considerable donations to Denison University and other Baptist colleges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1890<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n Henry Morrison Flagler, one of the co-founders of Standard Oil along with Rockefeller, bought the Ormond Hotel in 1890, located in Ormond Beach, Florida, two years after it opened. Flagler expanded it to accommodate 600 guests and the hotel soon became one in a series of Gilded Age hotels catering to passengers aboard Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway. One of Flagler’s guests at the Ormond Hotel was his former business partner John D. Rockefeller, who first stayed at the hotel in 1914. Rockefeller liked the Ormond Beach area so much that after four seasons at the hotel, he bought an estate in Ormond Beach called The Casements. It would be Rockefeller’s winter home during the latter part of his life. Sold by his heirs in 1939, it was purchased by the city in 1973 and now serves as a cultural center and is the community’s best-known historical structure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1893<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n He was allegedly influenced by a meeting in 1893 with Swami Vivekananda, who urged him to use more of his philanthropy to help poor and distressed people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n | |