Preview

John D Rockefeller Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1457 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
John D Rockefeller Essay
John D. Rockefeller

Who is John D. Rockefeller? John D. Rockefeller is one of the country’s first industrialists. His success made him the world’s wealthiest men in history and the richest man who ever lived. In addition, Rockefeller was distinguished as a great philanthropy. Rockefeller’s mindset was all in American industry and philanthropy since the nineteenth century. His ambition rose him to the top. Rockefeller is known for one of America's leading businessmen, and crediting to help shape the nation into what it is today. His first real start in business was at age twenty in 1859. Rockefeller and his partner, Clark, opened their own brokerage that traded produce and they even petroleum products, too. Cleveland was the perfect place to sell petroleum because with its closeness to the Pennsylvania oil fields and with the best transportation network, it quickly became the center of petroleum refining. In 1863, Rockefeller and partners finally opened their own refinery in 1863 by investing in a Ohio refinery. He bought his first refineries in Cleveland and ran it with efficiency that he was soon able to buy up competitors. Rockefeller easily grew his way up to the top. He dominated the petroleum industry by the time he was forty-years-old. In 1870, Henry Flagler, a friend who helped him with his business convinced Rockefeller to change the partnership of Rockefeller, Andrews, and Flagler into a corporation named Standard Oil. Standard Oil Company was formed by Rockefeller, his younger brother William, Henry Flagler, and a group of other men. Except, John D. Rockefeller was the “top dog” which means he was the president and he also became the shareholder of the company. Over the next years, he

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    John D. Rockefeller has earned a spot in the hall of shame. He became wealthy because of ruthless and dishonorable business tactics which then hurt the nation. Rockefeller became wealthy because, he lowered his prices way down and forced the Pennsylvania Railroad to lower their prices, and he also ran smaller companies out of business and then took them over for his own. After he took over most of the smaller businesses, he raised his own prices back up in order to bring in a bigger profit. Rockefeller’s robber baron side was reflected by this action because, he went behind people’s backs and turned the other way when it came to business partners.…

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Then Mr. Rockefeller with other partners got together to start to make a Standard Oil Trust, which had control of of a lot of companies that had Standard to control the domination of it, and the distribution it had, and selling and other things that the Oil Industry had in their policy of work. Standard’s domination of the oil industry came under evaluation from the public and the government. In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in an attack to limit the power of trusts,by taking out every contract, combination in the form of trust or any other way, or practice, in caution of trade or business. Standard lost a Sherman-related impeachment in Ohio in 1892, but it was later able to get into New Jersey as a holding company. John D. Rockefeller also had the good thing of giving money out for charity, which he gave mostly like half or more than a billion dollars to different things, like schools, churches, or scientific causes during the united state history.…

    • 894 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John D. Rockefeller was one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the post-civil war time. Rockefeller’s achievements had the greatest impact for the United States beginning in 1870. John D. Rockefeller moved to Cleveland, Ohio as a young boy with his family. As he grew older, he decided to create a business in the oil industry. As stated by George Tindall, “Rockefeller recognized the potential profits in refining oil, and in 1870 he incorporated his various interests, naming the enterprise the Standard Oil Company of Ohio.” (America) Rockefeller became the largest refiner and wanted to push out the competitors of the oil industry to control the market. Rockefeller bought out the other Cleveland companies. If any company disputed, that company was…

    • 308 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rockefeller would found Standard Oil company in 1870. This company was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, which would become the base of all his operations. Cleveland would become a top five refining center and Standard Oil would become the most profitable oil business. Rockefeller had some unorthodox means of doing business with competitors. He was once called "Reckafellow" by Carnegie which symbolizes how far Rockefeller would go to increase the wealth of his business. One of his illegal means of getting a cost advantage came from secret rebates from the railroads bringing oil into Cleveland. Other competing refiners wanted similar rebates but by the time they were recognized, Standard Oil would become one of the largest shippers of oil and kerosene in the country. By 1877, Rockefeller would control 95 percent of all the oil refineries in the United…

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Today, we know that John D Rockefeller the founder of Standard Oil company used his power to eliminate his competitors and tried to create a monopoly in oil industry. He made secret rebates with railroad companies, so railroads gave his company a lower rate than his competitors. As a result, he could drive out them from the market. In order to destroy the competitors, he raised prices in the areas with no competition, and lower prices in the areas with competition. His strategies ruined competitors, and made them to sell out or go bankrupt. He was considered a ruthless or tyrant who had a lot of enemies, but it was not considered illegal or unethical to monopolize an industry. I think after his first priority which was making money, he was…

    • 233 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    According to some business historians, "business leaders were not predatory money seekers. Indeed, in many cases they were talented individuals whose creative contributions to the economy - and to American society as a whole - were very great." Allan Nelvins said that "it was true that Rockefeller used methods that were of dubious moral character. On the other hand the kind of monopoly control attained by Standard Oil was a natural response to the anarchical cutthroat competition of the period and reflected the trend in all industrial nations toward consolidation. To Nelvins Rockefeller was not a robber baron; he was a great innovator who imposed upon American industry 'a more rational and efficient pattern.' Rockefeller's objective was not merely the accumulation of wealth; he and others like him were motivated by 'competitive achievement, self-expression, and the imposition of their wills on a given environment'" (The American Businessman: Industrial Innovator or Robber Baron, pg. 34). These men came into a disorganized economy and created organizations that played a vital role in making American the greatest industrial power in the world. If it were not for the advancements in steel, oil, textiles, chemicals, electricity, and automotive vehicles, our nation would not be where it stands…

    • 1559 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    John D. Rockefeller an oil tycoon and an investment mogul, he invented a new type of fuel for lamps called kerosene, formed an oil company called Rockefeller and Andrews, and his way of making profits was reinvesting the money he made back to the company. Later, Rockefeller formed a company called Standard Oil, the company quickly successful because he was in a good economic conditions and keeping margins high. He bought out all of his competitors, and he would make improvements, more efficient and profitable. He was a philanthropist in his later life. He donated his money into education, medicine, and the arts. In this way, he changed the public’s view big businesses and their leader.…

    • 116 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    1860 Dbq Analysis

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In document 7 it states that “In 1882 the Carnegie Steel Company...inaugurated a policy whose object was to control all factors which contributed to the production of steel, from the ore and coal in the ground to the steel billet and the steel rail.” Andrew Carnegie’s company basically owned iron mines, steel mills, railroads, and shipping lines. Rockefeller used his profits to buy other oil companies and ended rivalry in the oil industry by forming the Standard Oil Trust. J.P. Morgan created a banking monopoly, Swift and Armour possessed meat packing, and Vanderbilt created a railroad…

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many in this world think that Rockefeller was a nice man because he donated to charities, some believe that he was a crooked man, who cheated his way through life. John D. Rockefeller was a successful man who started from almost nothing. He started from the bottom and worked his way to the top, but he knew the laws and he broke them. He was a true 1900s industrial robber barron.…

    • 410 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    With this borrowed money and the money he had made with his other business, he bought the largest oil refinery in Cleveland, Ohio and started Standard Oil. Rockefeller formed Standard Oil with his younger brother William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, and a group of other men. John was the company’s president and the largest shareholder. Over the next few years, Rockefeller made new partners and grew his business interest in the growing oil industry. In 1882 these companies combined to form the Standard Oil Trust. This trust would soon control about 90% of the nation’s refineries and pipelines in America. One of the reasons Standard Oil was so successful was that they bought rival companies and started companies for distributing and marketing their products. “In order to exploit economies of scale, Standard Oil did everything from building it’s own barrels to employing scientists to figure out a use for petroleum by products.” Because of Rockefeller’s enormous wealth and fame, he was often the target of people spreading rumours about how he ran his business and how he became successful. As the New York Times reported in 1937: “ He was accused of crushing out competition, getting rich on rebates from railroads, bribing men to spy on competing companies, making secret agreements, coercing rivals to join the Standard Oil Trust under threat of being forced out of business, building up enormous fortunes on the ruins of other men, and so…

    • 607 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Meanwhile, the refinery he initially invested in had become one of the largest in Cleveland. He made new partners and continued to expand over the years. In 1870, Rockefeller created the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. The Standard Oil Company bought out rival refiners and became a monopoly. The company did everything from employing scientists to crafting their own barrels. A lot of the journalists and politicians around during this time viewed Rockefeller as being full of corporate greed. He was criticized about the methods by which he made his…

    • 594 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John D. Rockefeller created an oil empire, the Standard Oil Company, in this manner. Rockefeller monopolized the oil market through horizontal consolidation, buying out competitors, or driving competitors out of business by initiating rate wars. His cold-hearted mentality was highlighted when he claimed, “Individualism has gone, never to return.” In his testimony to the United States Industrial Commission, Rockefeller boasted about the “power to give the public improved products at less prices and still make a profit for stockholders”, but failed to recognize that consolidation left the poorer class suddenly unemployed. Many magnates also followed Andrew Carnegie’s entrepreneurial tactic of vertical consolidation, in which every stage of manufacturing a product was in the hands of a single corporation. According to James B. Weaver, such schemes allowed trusts to “control the articles which the plain people consume in their daily life.” The American people were forced to cope with the sugar trust, the leather trust, the harvester trust, the tobacco trust, and Rockefeller’s dominant Standard Oil trust. Along with the development of trusts, the invention of machinery allowed rich industrialists to hire less workers for lower wages. By cutting employees and saving money, the corrupt barons were…

    • 881 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    During the 18th and 19th centuries many industrial revolutions took place and modernized the American way of life. Advances were made that forever remodeled the landscape of American economics, industry, and politics. These innovations and advancements, however, did not come without much strife and toil. The innovators of the American Industrial Revolution were visionaries of their time. John D. Rockefeller was a true innovator and industrialist, one of the most recognized of his time. John Rockefeller’s field in which he shined was that of oil drilling, refining, and storing. His work would forever change the livelihood of the American people so much, that the effects of his work are still reminiscing today.…

    • 3007 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Monopoly is the possession or control of the supply in a service. The government made monopoly illegal because they started to hurt the companies by charging way too much for products which caused companies to lose money and run out of business. Then they made monopoly illegal in the 1980’s was passed as the Sherman Antitrust Act. The standard oil company was established in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller as a corporation in Ohio. The company's origin date was in 1863 when Rockefeller join Maurice B. Clarks Cleveland, Ohio oil company. By 1880, Through elimination of competitors, merges with with other companies and use of railroad rebates, they controlled the refining of 90 to 95 percent of all oil produce in the United States. Work industries…

    • 223 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    John D. Rockefeller

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The world's first billionaire, John D. Rockefeller Sr. held ninety percent of the world's oil refineries, ninety percent of the marketing of oil, and a third of all the oil wells. Working methodically and secretly, he did more than transform a single industry. When he formed his feared monopoly, Standard Oil, in 1870 he changed forever the way America did business. Because of the ruthless war he waged to crush his competitors, Rockefeller was to many Americans the embodiment of an unjust and cruel economic system. Yet he lived a quiet and virtuous life. "I believe the power to make money is a gift of God," Rockefeller once said. He believed the gift had bestowed upon him a particular aptitude for acquiring money. "It is my duty to make money and even more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow men" (Chernow 315).…

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays

Related Topics