JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
Rockefeller family one of the most powerful family in the world. How did they grow to become this monster of power? One man, John D. Rockefeller his life has lots of important decisions and actions.
John was born on July 8th 1839 in Richford, New York. John moved to Cleveland with his family at age 14. Being an entrepreneur, he starts at 20 dealing with business with agriculture. Soon he sensed the potential of oil production and so at 24 he built an oil refinery in Cleveland. His oil production grew to the largest in Cleveland and since then, he devoted the rest of his life to the oil game. After ten years John and a few associates incorporated Standard Oil Company.
Rockefeller’s emphasis economical operations, led to buying all the other oil companies in Cleveland by 1872. The company set piplelines, railroads, and terminal facilities to expand there oil shipments. By 1882 John achieved a monopoly on the oil business. He pretty much held the whole United States’ oil. Rockefeller then, made a major U.S.
“trust” along with 9 trustees’ and continued his conquer of the oil game. Becoming so rich a net worth of 900,000,000 dollars he us considered the richest man in history. Hostility grew because; of the monopoly he created, so that led congress to passing the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890). Due to this Rockefeller decided to dissolve the trust and transfer its properties in other states, but still keeping control through his 9 trusted associates. In 1899 the companies became Standard Oil Company again, until the Supreme Court declared it illegal due to the Sherman Antitrust Act.
After this John dedicated the rest of his life to philanthropy giving away 80,000,000 to build the University of Chicago, General Education Board, Rockefeller Medical Institute, and Rockefeller Foundation. To this day Standard Oil Company is still around under the name of Exxon Mobil. John has had a good life and started the foundation to the Rockefeller family. Goals and work was and still is continued through his great grand children. The families’ net worth now is around 11 trillion dollars. Through the families’ interest in education, medicine, finance, politics, agriculture, international relations, and population.
So overall every major business is usually an interest to them.