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Rockefeller - The Richest American Who Ever Lived

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He was called “the most hated man in America.”
Yet the New York Times described him as
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“the world’s greatest giver.” He was America’s
first billionaire. And he gave half of it away.
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He was the quintessential so-called
“Robber Baron” of the Gilded Age.
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But he was probably more responsible than any
other single individual for the creation of
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the American middle class and the development
of America as a great industrial power.
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He lived in a splendid mansion. But was so worried
about spoiling his children that he dressed
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them in hand me down clothes. Song lyrics were written about him. But he rarely went to social events.
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His name was John D. Rockefeller. And his
story is uniquely American.
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Born in upstate New York in 1839, he did not
have an easy childhood. His father was a part
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time salesman and a full time philanderer.
Rockefeller’s mother assured John that God
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was the father who would never let him down.
Rockefeller absorbed that message. It guided his life.
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Deeply religious, he put into practice
the spiritual law “Give and it shall be given unto you.”
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From his teenage years to his dying day, Rockefeller always gave a portion of his income to charity.
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Rockefeller’s special gift to the world
was kerosene, cheap kerosene, cheap enough
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that anyone could buy it. Before the formation
of his signature company, Standard Oil,
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people lit their homes with candles and heated them
with coal or wood. The candles were dim
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and the coal was dirty. Rockefeller’s affordable
kerosene -- processed crude oil -- made the
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world brighter, warmer, cleaner, and better
-- for everyone. “We must ever remember,”
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Rockefeller wrote to one of his partners in
1885, “we are refining oil for the poor man
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and he must have it cheap and good.”
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Rockefeller loved the business of business.
He attended to every detail -- always with
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the same goal, saving the customer money.
That he made so much of it himself was a byproduct.
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He was also scrupulously honest. His first
partner, Maurice Clark said,
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“If there was a cent due a customer, he wanted the customer to have it.”
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Rockefeller displayed genius at getting creative
ideas from his employees at Standard Oil.
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He paid them well -- and rarely had labor
problems. He generously rewarded his chemists
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and engineers when they found new ways to
get more kerosene out of a barrel of oil.
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Other oil refiners dumped oil waste into nearby
rivers. That repulsed Rockefeller who was
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perhaps the greatest environmentalist of his
age. Not only was he a great lover of nature,
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he was the ultimate recycler. He believed
there was a God-given use for every particle
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in a barrel of oil and he was determined to
find it.
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After the kerosene had been removed, Rockefeller’s
staff found uses for the remaining components:
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the gasoline as fuel, some of the tars for
paving, and other by-products to manufacture
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paint, varnish, and even anesthetics.
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It’s hard to imagine that the automobile
industry would have even come into existence
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without the availability of Rockefeller’s
cheap oil. When Henry Ford was ready with
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his Model-T, Rockefeller was ready to supply
the gas.
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By the early decades of the new century, millions
of Americans had jobs in oil-related industries.
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Those jobs helped to build the American middle
class. As Rockefeller said, “We saw the
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vast possibilities of the oil industry, stood
at the center of it, and brought our knowledge
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and imagination and business experience to
bear in a dozen, in twenty, in thirty directions.”
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Rockefeller was an oddity -- the first billionaire
in U.S. history, but no one could out-give him.
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From the time of his first job, earning
50 cents a day, the sixteen-year-old Rockefeller
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gave to his local Baptist church, to missions
in New York City, and to the poor --
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black or white. He believed in the biblical admonition
that not money, but “the love of money”
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was “the root of all evil.”
Rockefeller supported churches and missionaries
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all over the world; lavishly endowed colleges
like the University of Chicago and Spelman College,
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a black women’s college, named
after his wife, Laura; and gave millions to
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medical research. Before he died in 1937 in
his 98th year, he had given away about $550,000,000,
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which was more than any other American had
ever possessed.
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So, if he did so much good during his life,
why is he most commonly remembered today
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as the paradigm of a greedy capitalist? The answer
to that question, I’m afraid, has much more
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to do with our educational system than with
Rockefeller himself.
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Maybe it’s time to take a fresh look at both.
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I’m Burt Folsom, professor of History
at Hillsdale College, for Prager University.

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