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 * [[image:mshreffler:johny_d.jpg align="center" caption="John D. Rockefeller Sr. the 1st"]] ||
 * John D. Rockefeller Sr. the 1st ||

John D. Rockefeller John D. Rockefeller was born July 8, 1839 in Richford, NY his parents were William Avery and Eliza Davison Rockefeller. When he was 4 years old his family moved to a farm in Moraivia, NY, there he raised and sold turkeys when he was seven. When he was 14 his family moved yet again to a place just outside cleveland Ohio. There when he was sixteen he got a job working as a bookkeeper/clerk for Hewitt and Tuttle. When he turned 18 he and his friend, Maurice B. Clark, Started a commission house together. = =

Rise To Wealth
Rockefeller went to Folsom Mercantile College, then went on to work in the commission house with Clark. They soon starting the oil industry as refiners, and with Samuel Andrews, they started a business called Andrews, Clark & co. The firm stayed as a commission until the 5 employees decided that the management was bad, and they decided to sell the firm to the highest bidding employee. Rockefeller bought it for $72,500 and with the money made from selling his other interests, started Rockefeller & Andres with Samuel again.

Expansion
In 1870 Rockefeller noticed the increasing need for the oil industry, and started the Standard Oil Company with his brother William Rockefeller, Andrews, Henry M. Flagler, S.V. Harkness, and many other employees. The company had a net worth of approximately $1 million. By 1872 Rockefeller had bought out nearly all the refining companies in Cleveland. Rockefeller eventually controlled all aspects need or portaining to the or by the oil industry, although it wasn't considered a monopoly because there were still many firms he did not own. In 1882 Standard Oil proposed and recieved the bill for "trusts" in this case it was uncreatively called the "Standard Oil Trust" in which there were forty-two stockholders. Although this trust didn't last long... after 10 years the board of business decided that too many business's had started to use this system and that the Standard Oil Co. owned 3/4 of the oil industry in America and the trust system soon dissolved.

After Working
At 57 years old, John Rockefeller decided to allow others employees take over the Standard Oil day-to-day work he had done. He then decided to become a charitable philanthropist. He gave away most of his possesions in a way that assisted America most. " 'I believe it is every man's religious duty to get all he can honestly and to give all he can,' he once wrote." He had been getting and giving money since he had first started to make it, even when he a child he gave money to charitable cause. One of his most interested charities was for African-American ecucation.

Family Life
On September 8, 1864 Rockefeller and Laura C. Spelman, a teacher, were married. They had five children, four girls and one boy, John Jr. The eldest daughter, Bessie, was wed to Charles Strong. Their second child, Alice died as an infant. The third daughter married a man with a hard to spell name, and the fourth and youngest daughter married Harold McCormick. In the eighteen-seventies Rockefeller had to make business trips to and from Cleveland and New York. After a while he started to bring his whole fam damily on lengthy trips, and eventually bought a brownstone house on 4th west 54th Street. They spent most of their time in Pocantico Hills, about twenty-five miles north of New York City. For several years the family spent summers at their house near Cleveland, and as Rockefeller got some age on, he spent summers a little farther south. So in my final thoughts i conclude that because of his generous actions and easy going life, but buying out the industry he is both a robber baron and captain of industry.