FREE ESSAY ON JAMES ROCKAFELLER

JAMES ROCKAFELLER

John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller (July 8, 1839 - May 23, 1937) was the guiding force behind the
creation and development of the Standard Oil Company, which grew to dominate the oil
industry and became one of the first big trusts in the United States, thus engendering
much controversy and opposition regarding its business practices and form of
organization. Rockefeller also was one of the first major philanthropists in the U.S.,
establishing several important foundations and donating a total of $540 million to
charitable purposes. 
Rockefeller was born on farm at Richford, in Tioga County, New York, on July 8, 1839, the
second of the six children of William A. and Eliza (Davison) Rockefeller. The family
lived in modest circumstances. When he was a boy, the family moved to Moravia and later
to Owego, New York, before going west to Ohio in 1853. The Rockefellers bought a house in
Strongsville, near Cleveland, and John entered Central High School in Cleveland. While he
was a student he rented a room in the city and joined the Erie Street Baptist Church,
this later became the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church.
Rockefeller started to work at the age of 16 as a clerk in a small produce firm. After
that he formed a partnership in a grain commission house. Cleveland was a good place to
organize something big in the oil business. There were two major east-west railroads in
Cleveland. Also, Cleveland was on Lake Erie, which was big enough for large ships to
harbor. This made it possible to transport the oil easily. Rockefeller was determined to
make Cleveland the center of oil business. Before he was able to accomplish this feat, he
would eventually create the largest oil company in the world in Cleveland, titled
Standard Oil. 
Starting with a small sum of money Rockefeller bought a small oil refinery in Cleveland.
He then bought up other refineries in Cleveland and oil wells in Pennsylvania as well. As
result of Rockefeller's efforts taking over the oil industry, other oilmen went out of
business. Consequently, the railroads that carried the oil needed Rockefeller's freight
more than ever. Rockefeller was a very intelligent businessman. He arranged for two very
big railroads passing through Cleveland to compete for his large business. He did this by
bargaining and threatening one or the other railroad, telling them that he might give all
of his business to the other. This method worked. He finally forced the railroads to
charge him lower prices than they charged anybody else. By confidential dealings he
pretended to pay the regular rates. Then later the railroads gave him back a rebate,
which was a refund on each barrel of his oil that they had hauled. Shortly, they even
gave him rebates on what opposing oil companies shipped. After he perfected these
tactics, he went to the small refineries in other parts of the country, and asked them to
sell their companies to him. He would say, If you don't sell your property it will be
valueless, because we have advantages with the railroads. Rockefeller would then offer
them a much lower price for the refinery then the owners thought it was worth. Still the
refineries would sell because they knew the mass power that Rockefeller had and how he
could put them out of business easily. 
After a while it became cheaper to pump oil through pipelines instead of packaging it in
barrels. As a result, Rockefeller created his own pipeline. Rockefeller's great business
in the oil industry had even reached around the world. For example, in China Standard Oil
sold millions of inexpensive oil lamps and then sold the oil to fill them with. As time
passed on people all over the world were using oil from American wells. Now Americans
could afford a lamp in every room, and they did not have to go to bed at sunset anymore.
By the 1900s, little did Rockefeller know that the whole nation would be moving on
wheels. The car was invented, then petroleum was refined into gasoline and used as fuel
for the cars. All this made it possible for cars to move as they do today. Consequently
Rockefeller's company continued to grow. 
Although Rockefeller could be ruthless in business, he was generous contributing to
society. Rockefeller was 57 years old in 1896 when he decided that others should take
over the day-to-day leadership of Standard Oil. He now focused his efforts on
philanthropy, giving away the bulk of his fortune in ways designed to do the most good as
determined by careful study, experience and the help of expert advisers. Even while he
was still struggling to make his way he gave one-tenth of his profits to charities and
Baptist churches. Before his death in 1937, Rockefeller gave away well over 500 million
dollars. Most of the money went to foundations and organizations. Some of the more well
known foundations that he created are the Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Institute,
the General Education Board, and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial. Today the
Rockefeller name lives on through the institutions he founded. John D. Rockefeller
started with very little, amassed a fortune, and then gave back to the country that made
it possible for him to be so successful. 
To sum this all up Rockefeller created extremely successful companies, he used what are
now corrupt methods in some aspects of his corporation building to get to the top. The
success of the Standard Oil Company is credited to the fact that its owners ran them with
great authority. In this very competitive time period, many new businesses were being
formed. It took talented businessmen such as Rockefeller to get ahead and keep the
companies running and make the fortunes that were made during this period.