John D. Rockefeller was born on July eight, 1939 in Richford, New York, in a family of six. He was the second born in his family. His father used to trade many goods from farm properties that he owned included, patient medicines and lumber. His mother, on the other hand, had a different life as compared to the life of his father, she was a Christian, very strict and that is the same way she brought up her family in a strict way. John being a very hardworking teenager, he embarked on several small business ventures.
He attended the Cleveland central high school where he eventually dropped out (Ron C, 1998). He also attended the Oswego University in New York and later after they relocated to Ohio near Cleveland in 1853. Despite all the hustle, he attended the Folsom Mercantile College where he studied a single business class. He was a devout Baptist in his lifetime, and with this, he spent some time giving to charities and munificence.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
John had quit school early to try his hand in business and started off as a bookmaker but it did not work well, he even tried selling dry goods which include hay, grains and also meats. In his twenties, he was committed to helping the Africans who had been delivered from slavery. He had also been active in tithing activities in his church. This extended in his later life and started giving charities from his wealth. Around this time, he met a woman who became his wife. Her name was, Cettie Spelman. Her parents were abolitionist who helped him in helping African Americans. This though proved not fulfilling enough for him and thus decided to risk it all by joining the oil business.
His Christianity was rooted in the fact that his mother had instilled the art of giving to God despite the little he earned. He would give thousands to the church and borrow millions to expand his business. This is because he believed that God gave him wealth without measure and so wealth was a God's gift to him (Eschner, 2017). His mother told him once to make more money so that he would be able to give away as much. Even in his old age, he would attend church, church meetings when he could and also read the Bible with his wife at home. Neither work nor money kept him away from his faith and religion.
In his fifties, Rockefeller developed digestive complications and depression. This brought about a condition called alopecia. This is a condition where one can lose some or all of the body hair. This condition did not go away eventually despite wearing toupees to try to help it. The depression and the digestive complications, however, subsided after he lightened his involvement in his work. He, however, died of Arteriosclerosis, which is a condition where the arteries thicken and lack elasticity thus making it hard for blood to supply to the other organs. He died two months before his ninety-eighth birthday at his home in Florida. He was later buried in Cleveland in the Lake View Cemetery.
Rockefeller built his first oil refinery in Cleveland, and like many successful businessmen in history, it almost failed. He was twenty-four when he built this. This was around eighteen sixty-three. Struggling with bankruptcy, he had to find solutions which in his case were investors and business partners. His first partner was the famous road magnate Vanderbilt, who he hoped would help him with some competitive transporting rates for his failing business.
On the day he was supposed to meet Vanderbilt, he missed his train to New York. Later in the day, the same train he missed crashed. He had literally missed death by a whisker. He believed that was Gods intervention for his life in the business attempt. He later had his meeting with Vanderbilt, and they agreed that he would supply him with sixty barrels of oil in exchange; he would get cheaper shipping rates. This was a good business deal for Rockefeller. He would save a whole lot in transportation.
In this business, there was a challenge in the quality of the oil produced. At that time, there were always cases of fire explosions.it were also a time when anyone with some capital would join the business. John had saved up some money over the years to start up the business. With the deal that he had made with the likes of Vanderbilt, his company went from almost collapsing to the most successful in the area. Around 1870, he and other associated with the business and merged to form the Standard Oil Company in Ohio. With his knowledge of business, it did not take long for the company to buy out all other companies in the business. It eventually became the controlling company of all refineries in Cleveland.
With this much power, they could negotiate with favored railroads for better shipment rates for their oil, procured pipeline terminals, bought out competing refineries and also expanded their business into other states in America and abroad (McKay, 2016). In a board of nine other members, Rockefeller was the head. Business was finally good for him. By around 1882, Standard Oil Company had a close monopoly on the business oil in the United States.
In his entire life, John experienced some highs and lows in his life, had several successes and failures too because this was part of the game. When his company became the monopoly in the oil business, they were regarded as ruthless and faced so many critics and hostility. Some industrialized states pushed for enactment of the antimonopoly laws in the Congress. The court ruled that the Standard Company was a monopoly and was violating the laws that were against monopolies. This thus pushed Rockefeller to disintegrate the trust of the company into affiliated companies where the other board members were in control. They tried having it in a holding company, but then the Supreme Court found it in violation of the Ohio law that was against the monopolies. Making it illegal again and its ethics were put to question too.
By this time, Rockefeller owned eighty percent of the oil business in the economy. In 1873, there was a crash in the economy of the New York Stock Exchange. For the first time in history, so many companies laid off their workers. So many people were jobless but yet, the wealthy and mighty were still untouchable. In all these economic chaos, Rockefeller saw all this as an opportunity for his business to grow. He could now buy out his remaining competitors at very low rates giving him more power. By the time all this slump was over, the Standard Oil Company had become one of the strongest empires in the country (Engler, 1961). His competitors, Tom Scott and Andrew Carnegie, had built their own pipeline but they still had to transport Rockefeller’s oil. Eventually, they were out of business and John remained the only one in business controlling ninety-eight percent of the kerosene which was worth billions.
In the greater part of his life, John Rockefeller gave back to the society. He worked for around thirty years in his life, during which, the Standard Oil Company never lost any money or made losses. The rest of his life was spent distributing his wealth to the various projects that exist today. From an early age, his mother had cultured him into the Christianity ways. He had learned to tithe from the little that he had earned and this also went on to when he was wealthy and endowed. His heart was all in for helping the needy in the society. He had started by helping the Africans who had just been released from the slavery. One of the famous colleges is the University of Chicago where he funded generously. So many letters poured in from people asking him for money. He had to hire a full-time person to man to help him manage and administer his wealth wisely and still give some money out. By the time of his death, Rockefeller had made a generous donation of thirty-five million us dollars. He also created institutions like the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research which is now the Rockefeller University in New York, the General Education Board, and the Rockefeller Foundation. All these institutions are among the many that he helped fund with his wealth.
His business faced too many critics especially from those who hated the monopoly that he had created. Many businesses were bought out by the Standard Oil Company which broke some families too. An example is the Tarbell family whose business was taken over by Rockefeller. Tarbell was one of Rockefeller's business partners who committed suicide after the loss of his business. This, of course, left an impression of that family and many others.
Being a philanthropist, Rockefeller is such an impact in today's society and the business world. His work makes him very relevant to the current generation. Not only is he considered a great industrialist, but he is also the greatest philanthropist ever lived (Ron C, 1998). He funded organizations that help in research; companies that help build the economy stronger, touched people's lives in both negative and positive ways. He once said that competition is evil and that's why he used to buy out all his competitors in the business leaving him the only one. In his life at some point, he founded what became the most luxurious and prestigious black women's college today in the United States. The Spelman College in Georgia, in all these donations he made, he did not want any recognition, so they barely had his name on them. This was a great quality of humility in him since he believed that all the wealth he had was all Gods and he was only a steward for all of it.
Some of his responses about some issues went down as quotes which are used today to motivate people to success. He taught people to celebrate their hard work. He always celebrated ‘Job Day on every September twenty-sixth since that was the day he landed his first job. From his mentality that competition is evil, Rockefeller is more of a socialist than as capitalist because his philanthropic nature surpassed the race differences.
In conclusion, the life of John D Rockefeller has its highlights which were mainly the fact that he made it from the rags to riches. Having a net worth of about six hundred and sixty million is such an accomplishment. The fact that a huge part of all this wealth that he had gone back to the society is quite a legacy, his business strategy and application was also something to be remembered. Having to fight the courts on the monopoly issue for his business was a struggle for him. This, of course, goes for any business in life. One of his failures would be losing to the courts and having to disintegrate the monopoly idea he had for business. His social life was remarkable being a man of such faith, maintaining all that with the money in his life. One would expect quite the opposite of who he was.
He never believed in living flashy and instead accumulated his wealth until he could not work anymore and left his son, John D Rockefeller Jr in charge of the business. He tried to be there for his family when he could but with all the cameras on him especially after the court cases, he preferred to stay off the public and all the scrutiny that came with it. He even missed some donation charities that were made by his business (Engler, 1961). He was a private person to say. It is said that John D Rockefeller was so rich and powerful that he could see the country into collapse. Most people do not know that there was a time when the Federal government reached out to John for an emergency loan to save the country from collapsing financially.
References
Engler R, (1961), The Politics of Oil: A Study of Private Power and Democratic Directions, Macmillan
Eschner K, (2017), John Rockefeller was the richest person to ever live. Period
McKay K, (2016), Be Your Own Tyrant: John D Rockefeller’s success
Ron C, (1998), Titan: the life of John Rockefeller, Warner Books
