John D. Rockefeller, Sr., 1839-1937, was born in New York state, but moved as a child with his family to Ohio. At the age of 16, he started work as a bookkeeper. By saving his money and by working hard, by age twenty he had become a partner in a produce company. In the mid 1860s, Cleveland had a growing oil refinery business, and in 1863, Rockefeller and others joined together to establish an oil refinery business. This became the Standard Oil Company of Ohio in 1870.

A Ruthless Competitor

Rockefeller's company had a reputation as a ruthless competitor. By watching carefully where it spent money, by arranging mergers and agreements with others in the oil field, by setting aside large capital reserves, and by going after and destroying those competitors who were not strong enough to withstand it, Rockefeller's organization soon came to be the leading force in the American oil-refining industry. The rebate agreements he wrestled from the railroads and his ability to control the pipeline distribution of the refined oil made Standard Oil into what was essentially a monopoly.

In the early 1880s, the various parts of the Rockefeller organization had come together into what was known as the Standard Oil trust. The trust was short-lived, however; it was dissolved by the courts in the early 1890s. However, the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey was developed a few years later as a holding company worth $110 million. Rockefeller was also a member of the board at United States Steel Corporation, which had been formed to buy out Andrew Carnegie in 1901. The vast Rockefeller empire did not hold together for too many more years; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1911 that the holding company would have to dissolve.

Philanthropy

The breakup of Standard Oil did not affect John D. Rockefeller as much as it affected others. He was still fabulously wealthy, and had not been actively running his companies since 1896, when he turned full-time to pursuing philanthropy. Rockefeller provided gifts to the Baptist Church, to the Anti-Saloon League, and to the YMCA. He was also the founder of the University of Chicago in 1892. He was responsible for the establishment in 1901 of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, known since 1965 as Rockefeller University; for the General Education Board, created in 1902 to provide gifts to educational and research agencies; for the Rockefeller Foundation, established in 1913 to promote medical, natural, and social sciences; and for the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, which works for better child welfare.