John D. Rockefeller

¿Who is Rockefeller?

• John Davison Rockefeller was an entrepreneur and investor, industrialist, who worked in the world of the oil industry, reaching the point of monopolizing it.

Early business

• At the age of 16, John Davison Rockefeller was an accountant in Cleveland.
• He founded, with his partner M. B. Clark, the firm Clark & ​​Rockefeller, which obtained, in the first year, benefits for $ 4000 and in the second quadrupled the sum.
• He also invested in the coffee sector.

Refineries

• In 1862, with the savings and profits of his coffee firm, he became a member of Clark & ​​Andrews, which began installing its refineries, and in a very short time began to acquire others in Cleveland, an activity that continued until appropriating a large part of those in the city.
• The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 was the key to his fortune. Two years before, with the drilling of the first oil well, he realized that he could earn more with his transportation and refining than with exploitation.

Hidden Talent

• Later on, he founded Rockefeller & Andrews, it was the largest refinery in Cleveland, with a capacity of 500 barrels per day and earnings of one million dollars per year, which would double the following year.
• Standard oil, a company created by Rockefeller, eventually absorbed Rockefeller & Andrews, leaving John at charge.

Shares

• To avoid being accused of monopolizing the petrol industry he created Standard Oil Trust, to have full control over 90% of the USA´s petrol.
• He eventually lost before the judge and had to Split shares of his monopoly but he was still the richest man in the United States.

Legacy

• The current structure of the main companies in the oil sector is mostly heir to Rockefeller's immense monopoly, testimony to the great power it exercised and the extensive influence it had and that marked this industry.

final days and Death

• After his retirement as president of his vast empire in 1911, he focused his attention mainly on his philanthropic activities and his most ambitious project in the real estate field, the construction of the Rockefeller Center, which he could never see finished, due to his death May 23, 1937 at his home in Ormond Beach, Florida, at the age of 98.