John D. Rockefeller as a Robber Baron Essay

From the years 1870-1937 John D. Rockefeller was a Captain of Industry and truly was an example of the idyllic American dream. He by his success as a Captain of Industry also set a precedent from then on about the way that other Captains of Industries made their wealth and ran their companies as well. Furthermore, John D. Rockefeller was a Captain of Industry because he built the Standard Oil Company and was a very generous philanthropist. John D. Rockefeller did generate lots of revenue and create many jobs in the United States but it also can be said that he took advantage of the less fortunate by paying them less and buying out competing businesses.

John D. Rockefeller should be considered a Robber Baron. Rockefeller may be associated with a Robber baron because he used illegal tactics to create a strong oil company. The most uncertain things of all his success was how he got it. John was getting discounts from other railroad companies which made them suspicious of him. Which as you could see would be a disadvantage to other oil companies that were in competition with them. Rockefeller's competition found this practice and others he did to be funny which is why he was considered a robber baron by many people. Rockefeller owned basically the entire oil industry at the same time when he bought out the other oil businesses. Rockefeller workers barely made income, he always shortened their pay which made them stop working for him. The workers felt that if they were working hard they should get paid what they deserved. So even with him being one of the richest man alive who donated money to different business such as schools, churches and etc he used different unfair advantages to accomplish his success.

In conclusion, J.P. Morgan is considered more of a “Captain of Industry” for today’s modern age than a robber baron. America would have been a whole different country without his contributions towards society, especially if he didn’t start the many companies and industries during his

"John began to keep a ledger, noting every expenditure, large and small. For him, numbers were sacred." After holding a job there for three months, Rockefeller's zealous work was rewarded with fifty dollars' pay, and a raise to twenty five dollars per month. This was a large amount of money during the 1850's, especially for a boy of seventeen. Interestingly, Rockefeller considered this raise unnecessary, "one has a hunch that he was jubilant but feared, out of religious scruples, his own greed." This early experience showed to John D. that hard work, punctuality, and ambition can lead to great profits. He would pursue this ambition throughout his life. His three years of working at Hewitt & Tuttle taught him how a business was run, and he was ready to start his own.

At the mere age of 16 he went to work for a firm of farm-produce shippers. A couple of years later, he went into that business for himself. In 1862, he went into business with Samuel Andrews, the inventor of an inexpensive process for the refinement of crude petroleum. By 1870 the company had been superseded then in 1870 Rockefeller and his brother William and several associates took over the business. By the 1880’s the company was one of the largest and richest manufacturing concerns in the world. Rockefeller main concern wasn’t always business he married Laura Celestia Spelman in 1864. They had three daughters Bessie, Edith, and Alta and one son John D. Rockefeller, Jr. In 1862 Rockefeller formed the Standard Oil Trust. This, the first corporate trust, was declared an illegal monopoly and ordered dissolved by the Ohio Supreme Court in 1892. Rockefeller retired as president in 1911. Also in 1911 the company was broken into separate corporations by an antitrust decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. At the peak of Rockefeller’s personal fortune was estimated at almost 1 billion dollars. Rockefeller founded the University of Chicago in 1892. Rockefeller died at the age of 97 on May 23, 1937, in Ormond, Florida. He was buried in Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio.

First, John D. Rockefeller didn’t start as wealthy young boy he was poor growing up sold candy for a living and with every piece of candy he sold, he made money to support his family because he could not rely on his father because he was conman who left all the time. John D. Rockefeller started to get into the oil business he saw a lot of potential in oil, he became interponer and saw that oil could make him rich and powerful.

John D. Rockefeller Jr. took a massive beating from the press following the events in Ludlow, as well as the Rockefeller family name was basically dragged through the mud. An advisor for Rockefeller, Mackenzie King, as well as public relations expert, Ivy Lee, were hired to try and mend the family’s damaged reputation. Some of the strategies they came up with included meeting with the miners and their families to listen to all their concerns and complaints, Rockefeller inspected the conditions of the factories and the miner’s homes and attended social events. This ultimately was great advice and attracted positive media coverage which assisted in resolving the issue of the Ludlow strike. This could be considered a major turning point in Rockefeller’s life because the strategies worked to repair the reputation of the Rockefeller family

The Rockefellers feared the temptations of wealth, yet a visitor once described their estate as the kind of place God would have built if only he’d had the money. They amassed a fortune that outraged a Democratic nation, then gave it all away reshaping America. They were the closest thing the country had to a royal family, but the Rockefellers shunned the public eye. For decades, the Rockefeller name was despised in America, associated with John D. Rockefeller Sr.’s feared monopoly, Standard Oil. By the end of his life, Rockefeller had given away half of his fortune. But even his vast philanthropy could not erase the memory of his predatory business practices. Who was Rockefeller? Was he a ruthless businessman who only wanted to

John D Rockefeller was one of the first major businessmen in America. He was the wealthiest person in the United States at the time, and had a big influence on everyday lives of Americans with his oil refineries. John D Rockefeller’s business was captain of industry because he progressed creation of businesses and created jobs, gave money to many different organizations and causes, and used his own business tactics to complete an oil monopoly of the oil business.

Rockefeller changed the way that people would view him and his business forever. Her investigation would also open the eyes of innocent, naïve people, shaping the future into a much more just and fair business and political environment. Prior to her exposure of Rockefellers’ corrupt oil monopoly he was thought of as a genius business man who built his empire fairly, but that all would change. the enlightening book titled The History of the Standard Oil Company, was instrumental in the fall of the monopoly of John D. Rockefeller. The book was compiled from a series of articles written by Tarbell in McClure’s, which resulted in the mobilization of society to help bring down the oil trust. Tarbell thoroughly researched the Standard Oil Company to find hidden information. In her writing, she revealed the true problems underneath the “gilded” surface of the industrial era such as unfair, illegal, unethical, and corrupt business practices. Along with

Rockefeller techniques I found it to be unjustified the way he handles business. Rockefeller in the 1860s and 1870s had a rough competition with producers, refiners, manufactures, brokers, and shippers. It was his need to have power and wealth that led him to take drastic measures to have a prosperous business. Consequently, that meant getting rid of the overwhelming competition in the industry. The destructive strategies he used were unjustified. Some of these methods were illegal and even aggressive. He wanted to acquire monopoly control in the industry which lead to bribing political officials. As well as, hiring spies and with the information that he received he would formulate arsenal of obstruction to eliminate competitors. He was definitely

John Pierpont Morgan was born on April 17 1837. The Morgan family was a rather influential family, J.P’s father was a successful business man and HIS father was a successful Wall Street banker. When john was thirteen his father was invited to be a partner in the London banking business owned by dry goods merchant George Peabody. Than young J.P. was taken out of the Boston’s English high school and was enrolled into a private school in Switzerland where after two years he was transferred to the University of Gottingen in Germany. In 1857 the now twenty year old J.P. was installed by his father into Duncan Sherman and co (Peabody’s American representive). Than from 1860 to 1864 he acted as an agent in New York for his fathers firm renamed J.S. Morgan and company upon Peabody’s retirement in 1864. In 1871 he partnered with the Drexel’s of Philadelphia to form the company of Drexel, Morgan and company. After the death of Mr. Drexel the firm had the original name changed

Question two: A few things happened that made people criticize John Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Some of these were accusations and one of them was the thought that John Rockefeller was involved in trying to get rid of his competitors and predatory pricing. It is said that he was trying to gain a monopoly in the railroad industry. Another accusation was that he bribed other men to spy on his competitors and made secret agreements. Standard Oil was made up of a variety of companies and they controlled a majority of the pipelines and refineries. Congress attempted to stop this monopoly from forming by passing the Sherman Antitrust Act that forbade combinations and trusts in business.

In order to make sure that his company was the largest, Rockefeller then bought thousands of acres of forest for the wood. By buying so much land, it stopped their competitors from running their own

D Rockefeller, one of the first things that probably pops in their mind, is that he owned of the first biggest monopolies in American history. His propensity of excelling in the business world, helped him become a great businessman. “In the early 1860s, he built his first oil refinery, near Cleveland, in 1863. Within two years it was the largest refinery in the area” (John D. Rockefeller). His ambition is well represented in the fact that fairly quickly, his oil industry became one of the biggest in his location.